
[0 



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TO 

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, 

£J)ts jfirgt (SCompUtt !5tittton of mg Pnems 

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 



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CONTENTS. 



EARLIER POEMS. page 

Threnodia , • • 1 

The Sirens 2 

Irene 3 

Serenade 4 

With a Pressed Flower 5 

The Beggar 5 

v My Love 5 

Summer Storm 6 

Love 7 

To Perdita, Singing 8 

The Moon 9 

Remembered Music 9 

Song • 9 

Allegra 10 

The Fountain 10 

v Ode 11 

The Fatherland 13 

The Forlorn 14 

Midnight .... * .15 

A Prayer 15 

The Heritage t . . 15 

The Rose : A Ballad 16 

Song 17 

Rosaline 17 

A Requiem 18 

A Parable 18 

Song 19 

SONNETS. 

i. To A. C. L 19 

ii. "What were I, Love" 19 

/in. " I would not have this perfect love " 20 

iv. " For this true nobleness " 20 

v. To the Spirit of Keats 20 

vi. "Great Truths are portions of the soul" 20 

vii. "I ask not for those thoughts" 20 

vin. To M. W., on her birthday 21 

v ix. " My Love, I have no fear " 21 

x. " I cannot think that thou" 21 



VI CONTENTS. 

xi. " There never yet was flower " 24 

^ xn. Sub Pondere Crescit 22 

-xiii. "Beloved, in the noisy city here" 22 

v xiv. On reading Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defence of Capital Punishment . . 22 

xv. The same continued - 22 

v' xvi. The same continued 22 

xvii. The same continued 23 

^ xvm. The same continued . 23 

>/ xix. The same continued 23 

v xx. To M. O. S 23 

xxi. "Our love is not a fading, earthly flower" 24 

, xxn. In Absence 24 

xxiii. Wendell Phillips 24 

xxiv. The Street 24 

xxv. "I grieve not that ripe Knowledge" 25 

xxvi. To J. R. Giddings 25 

■.xxvii. "I thought our love at full" 25 

L'Envoi 25 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

-/A Legend of Brittany 27 

% Prometheus 38 

The Shepherd of King Admetus 44 

The Token 44 

An Incident in a Railroad Car 44 

Rhoecus 46 

The Falcon 48 

Trial 48 

A Glance behind the Curtain 49 

A Chippewa Legend 54 

Stanzas on Freedom 56 

Columbus 56 

An Incident of the Fire at Hamburg 60 

The Sower • 61 

Hunger and Cold 61 

The Landlord 62 

To a Pine-Tree 63 

Si Descendero in Infernum, Ades 63 

To the Past 64 

To the Future 65 

Hebe 66 

The Search . 66 

The Present Crisis 67 

An Indian-Summer Reverie 69 

The Growth of the Legend .74 

A Contrast 76 

Extreme Unction 76 

The Oak . 77 

Ambrose * ... 78 

Above and Below 79 

The Captive 79 

The Birch-Tree 80 

An Interview with Miles Standish 81 

On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington 82 



CONTENTS. Vll 

To the Dandelion 83 

The Ghost-Seer . . 84 

Studies for two Heads 83 

On a Portrait of Dante by Giotto 87 

On the Death of a Friend's Child 87 

Eurydice 89 

She Came and Went 90 

The Changeling 90 

The Pioneer 91 

Longing 92 

Ode to France 92 

Anti-Apis 94 

A Parable 96 

Ode written for the Celebration of the Introduction of the Cochituate Water into the 

City of Boston 96 

Lines suggested by the graves of two English Soldiers on Concord Battle-Ground . 97 

To ' . . 98 

Freedom 98 

Bibliolatres 99 

Beaver Brook 100 

MEMORIAL VERSES. 

Kossuth 101 

To Lamartine '....' 101 

To John G. Palfrey 102 

To W. L. Garrison 103 

On the Death of C. T. Torrey 104 

Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing 104 

To the Memory of Hood 106 

THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 107 

A FABLE FOR CRITICS 113 

THE BIGLOW PAPERS. First Series. 

Notices of an Independent Press . . . . . . . . . 153 

Note to Title-Page 160 

Introduction 162 

i. A Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow of Jaalam to the Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham 169 

ii. A Letter from Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Hon. J. T. Buckingham . . . 171 

in. What Mr. Robinson thinks 175 

iv. Remarks of Increase D. O'Phace, Esq 179 

v. The Debate in the Sennit 185 

vi. The Pious Editor's Creed 187 

vn. A Letter from a Candidate for the Presidency in answer to suttin Questions 

proposed by Mr. Hosea Biglow 190 

viii. A second Letter from B. Sawin, Esq 193 

ix. A third Letter from B. Sawin, Esq 199 

THE BIGLOW PAPERS. Second Series. 

Introduction 209 

i. Birdofredum Sawin, Esq. , to Mr. Hosea Biglow 231 

ii. Mason and Slidell : A Yankee Idyll 238 

in. Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Biglow . . . . •. . 250 

iv. A Message of Jeff Davis in Secret Session 257 

v. Speech of Honourable Preserved Doe in Secret Caucus .... 263 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

vi. Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line 269 

vn. Latest Views of Mr. Biglow 275 

vm. Kettelopotoniachia 279 

ix. Some memorials of the late Reverend H. Wilbur 282 

x. Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly 285 

xi. Mr. Hosea Biglow's Speech in March Meeting 287 

Glossary 296 

Index 299 

f 

THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT 311 

AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE 322 

UNDER THE WILLOWS, AND OTHER POEMS. 

To Charles Eliot Norton • .... 329 

Under the Willows 329 

Dara 335 

The First Snow-Fail 336 

The Singing Leaves 337 

Sea-Weed 338 

The Finding of the Lyre 338 

New- Year's Eve. 1850 339 

For an Autograph 339 

Al Fresco 339 

Masaccio 340 

Without and Within 341 

Godminster Chimes 341 

The Parting of the Ways 342 

Aladdin 344 

An Invitation 344 

The Nomades 345 

Self-Study 346 

Pictures from Appledore 347 

The Wind-Harp 351 

Auf Wiedersehen . 352 

Palinode 352 

After the Burial 353 

The Dead House . ' 353 

A Mood 354 

The Voyage to Vinland 354 

Mahmood the Image-Breaker 358 

Invita Minerva . . - 359 

The Fountain of Youth 359 

Yussouf 362 

The Darkened Mind 362 

What Rabbi Jehosha said 363 

All-Saints 363 

A Winter-Evening Hymn to my Fire 363 

Fancy's Casuistry 365 

To Mr. John Bartlett 366 

Ode to Happiness ..,.., 367 

Villa Franca 368 

The Miner , . . ; . . 369 

Gold Egg ; A Dream-Fantasy . . . . . . . . . ' . . 369 



CONTENTS. ix 

A Familiar Epistle to a Friend 371 

An Ember Picture 373 

To H. W. L 374 

The Nightingale in the Study . . . • 375 

In the Twilight 375 

The Foot-Path 375 

POEMS OF THE WAR. 

The Washers of the Shroud 378 

Two Scenes from the Life of Blondel 380 

Memorise Positum 381 

On Board the 76 383 

Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration 384 

. L'Envoi : To the Muse 390 

THE CATHEDRAL 393 

THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. 

Ode on the Hundredth Anniversary of the Fight at Concord Bridge . . . 407 

Under the Old Elm at Cambridge 410 

An Ode for the Fourth of July 416 

INDEX 421 



\\ 



EARLIER POEMS. 



THRENODIA. 

Gone, gone from us ! and shall we see 
Those sibyl -leaves of destiny, 
Those calm eyes, nevermore ? 
Those deep, dark eyes so warm and 

bright, 
Wherein the fortunes of the man 
Lay slumbering in prophetic light, 
In characters a child might scan ? 
So bright, and gone forth utterly I 
stern word — Nevermore ! 

The stars of those two gentle eyes 
Will shine no more on earth ; 
Quenched are the hopes that had their 

birth, 
As we watched them slowly rise, 
Stars of a mother's fate ; 
And she would read them o'er and o'er, 
Pondering, as she sate, 
Over their dear astrology, 
Which she had conned and conned before, 
Deeming she needs must read aright 
What was writ so passing bright. 
And yet, alas ! she knew not why, 
Her voice would falter in its song, 
And tears would slide from out her eye, 
Silent, as they were doing wrong. 

stern word — Nevermore ! 

The tongue that scarce had learned to 
claim 
An.entrance to a mother's heart 
By;that dear talisman, a mother's name, 
Sleeps all forgetful of its art ! 

1 loved to see the infant soul 
(How mighty in the weakness 
Of its untutored meekness !) 
Peep timidly from out its nest, 
His lips, the while, 

Fluttering with half-fledged words, 

Or hushing to a smile 

That more than words expressed, 



When his glad mother- on him stole 
And snatched him to her breast ! 
0, thoughts were brooding in those eyes, 
That would have soared like strong- 
winged birds 
Far, far into the skies, 
Gladding the earth with song, 
And gushing harmonies, 
Had he but tarried with us long ! 
stern word — Nevermore ! 

How peacefully they rest, 
Crossfolded there 
Upon his little breast, 
Those small, white hands that ne'er were 

still before, 
But ever sported with his mother's hair, 
Or the plain cross that on her breast she 

wore ! 
Her heart no more will beat 
To feel the touch of that soft palm, 
That ever seemed a new surprise 
Sending glad thoughts up to her eyes 
To bless him with their holy calm, — 
Sweet thoughts ! they made her eyes as 

sweet. 
How quiet are the hands 
That wove those pleasant bands ! 
But that they do not rise and sink 
With his calm breathing, I should think 
That he were dropped asleep. 
Alas ! too deep, too deep 
Is this his slumber ! 
Time scarce can number 
The years ere he will wake again. 
0, may we see his eyelids open then ! 
stern word — Nevermore ! 

As the airy gossamer e, 
Floating in the sunlight clear, 
Where'er it toucheth clingeth tightly, 
Round glossy leaf or stump unsightly, 
So from his spirit wandered out 
Tendrils spreading all about, 



EARLIER POEMS. 



7 



\ 



Knitting all things to its thrall 
With a perfect love of all : 
stern word — Nevermore ! 

He did but float a little way 
Adown the stream of time, 
With dreamy eyes watching the ripples 

play, 
Or hearkening their fairy chime ; 
His slender sail 
Ne'er felt the gale ; 
He did but float a little way, 
And, putting to the shore 
While yet 't w T as early day, 
Went calmly on his way, 
To dwell with us no more ! 
/ No jarring did he feel, 
No grating on his vessel's keel ; 
A strip of silver sand 
Mingled the waters w T ith the land 
Where he was seen no more : 
stern word — Nevermore ! 

Full short his journey was ; no dust 
Of earth unto his sandals clave ; 
The weary weight that old men must, 
He bore not to the grave. 
He seemed a cherub who had lost his 

way 
And wandered hither, so his stay 
With us was short, and 'twas most meet 
That he should be no delver in earth's 

clod, 
Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet 
N To stand before his God: 
blest word — Evermore ! 



THE SIRENS. 

The sea is lonely, the sea is dreary, 
The sea is restless and uneasy ; 
Thou seekest quiet, thou art weary, 
AVandering thou knowest "not whith- 
er ; — 
Our little isle is green and breezy, 
Come and rest thee ! come hither, 
Come to this peaceful home of ours, 

Where evermore 
The low west-wind creeps panting up 

the shore 
To be at rest among the flowers ; 
Full of rest, the green moss lifts, 

As the dark waves of the sea 
Draw in and out of rocky rifts, 

Calling solemnly to thee 
With voices deep and hollow, — 



* * To the shore 
Follow ! 0, follow ! 
To be at rest forevermore ! 
Forevermore ! " 

Look how the gray old Ocean 
From the depth of his heart rejoices, 
Heaving with a gentle motion, 
When he hears our restful voices ; 
List how he sings in an undertone. 
Chiming with our melody ; 
And all sweet sounds of earth and air 
Melt into one low voice alone, 
That murmurs over the weary sea, 
And seems to sing from everywhere, — 
' ' Here mayst thou harbor peacefully, 
Here mayst thou rest from the aching 
oar ; 
Turn thy curved prow ashore, 
And in our green isle rest forevermore ! 
Forevermore ! " t 

And Echo half wakes in the wooded hill, 
And, to her heart so calm and deep, 
Murmurs over in her sleep, 
Doubtfully pausing and murmuring still, 
" Evermore ! " 

Thus, on Life's weary sea, 
Heareth the marinere 
Voices sweet, from far and near, 
Ever singing low and clear, 
Ever singing longingly. 

Is it not better here to be, 
Than to be toiling late and soon ? 
In the dreary night to see 
Nothing but the blood-red moon 
Go up and down into the sea ; 
Or, in the loneliness of day, 

To see the still seals only 
Solemnly lift their faces gray, 

Making it yet more lonely ? 
Is it not better than to hear 
Only the sliding of the wave 
Beneath the plank, and feel so near 
A cold and lonely grave, 
A restless grave, where thou shalt lie 
Even in death unquietly ? 
Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark, 

Lean over the side and see 
The leaden eye of the sidelong shark 
Upturned patiently, 

Ever waiting there for thee : 
Look down and see those shapeless forms, 

Which ever keep their dreamless sleep 

Far down within the gloomy deep, 
And only stir themselves in storms, 
Rising like islands from beneath, 



IREN& 



And snorting through the angry spray, 

As the frail vessel perisheth 

In the whirls of their unwieldy play ; 

Look down ! Look down ! 
Upon the seaweed, slimy and dark, 
That waves its arms so lank and brown, 

Beckoning for thee ! 
Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark 
Into the cold depth of the sea ! 
Look down ! Look down ! 
Thus, on Life's lonely sea, 
Heareth the marinere 
Voices sad, from far and near, 
Ever singing full of fear, 
Ever singing drearfully. 

Here all is pleasant as a dream ; 

The wind scarce shaketh down the dew, 

The green grass floweth like a stream 

Into the ocean's blue ; 

Listen ! 0, listen ! 

Here is a gush of many streams, 

A song of many birds, 
And every wish and longing seems 
Lulled to a numbered flow of words, — 

Listen ! 0, listen ! 
Here ever hum the golden bees 
Underneath full-blossomed trees, 
At once with glowing fruit and flowers 

crowned ; — 
The sand is so smooth, the yellow sand, 
That thy keel will not grate as it touches 

the land ; 
All around with a slumberous sound, 
The singing waves slide up the strand, 
And there, where the smooth, wet peb- 
bles be, 
The waters gurgle longingly, 
As if they fain would seek the shore, 
To be at rest from the ceaseless roar, 
To be at rest forevermore, — 
Forevermore. 
Thus, on Life's gloomy sea, 
Heareth the marinere 
Voices sweet, from far and near, 
Ever singing in his ear, 
"Here is rest and peace for thee ! " 



IRENE. 

Hers is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear ; 
| Calmly beneath her earnest face it lies, 
\ Free without boldness, meek without a 
fear, 
Quicker to look than speak its sympa- 
thies : 



v Far down into her large and patient eyes 
I gaze, deep-drinking of the infinite, 
As, in the mid-watch of a clear, still night, 
I look into the fathomless blue skiesA 

So circled lives she with Love's holy 

light, 
That from the shade of self she walketh 

free ; 
The garden of her soul still keepeth she 
An Eden where the snake did never enter ; 
She hath a natural, wise sincerity, 
A simple truthfulness, and these have lent 

her 
A dignity as moveless as the centre ; 
So that no influence of earth can stir 
Her steadfast courage, nor can take away/ 
The holy peacefulness, which night and 

day, 
Unto her queenly soul doth minister. 

Most gentle is she ; her large charity 
(An all unwitting, childlike gift in her) 
Not freer is to give than meek to bear ; 
And, though herself not unacquaint with 

care, 
Hath in her heart wide room for all that 

be, — 
Her heart that hath no secrets of its own, 
But open is as eglantine full blown. 
Cloudless forever is her brow serene, 
Speaking calm hope and trust within her, 

whence 
Welleth a noiseless spring of patience, 
That keepeth all her life so fresh, so green 
And full of holiness, that every look, 
The greatness of her woman's soul reveal- 
ing, 

Unto me bringeth blessing, and a feeling } 
As when I read in God's own holy bookj 

Agraciousness in giving that doth make 
The small' st gift greatest, and a sense 

most meek 
Of worthiness, that doth not fear to take 
From others, but which always fears to 

speak 
Its thanks in utterance, for the giver's 

sake ; — 
The deep religion of a thankful heart, 
Which rests instinctively in Heaven's 

clear law 
With a full peace, that never can depart 
From its own steadfastness ; — a holy awe 
For hoty things, — not those which men 

call holy, 
But such as are revealed to the eyes 



EARLIER POEMS. 



Of a true woman's soul bent down and 

lowly 
Before the face of daily mysteries ; — 
A love that blossoms soon, but ripens 

slowly 
To the full goldenness of fruitful prime, 
Enduring with a firmness that defies 
All shallow tricks of circumstance and 

time, 
By a sure insight knowing where to cling, 
And where it clingeth never withering ; — 
These are Irene's dowry, which no fate 
Can shake from their serene, deep-builded 

state. 

' In-seeing sympathy is hers, which chas- 
ten eth 

No less than loveth, scorning to be bound 

"With fear of blame, and yet which ever 
hasteneth 

To pour the balm of kind looks on the 
wound, 

If they be wounds which such sweet teach- 
ing makes, 

Giving itself a pang for others' sakes ; 

No want of faith, that chills with side- 
long eye, 

Hath she ; no jealousy, no Levite pride 

That passeth by upon the other side ; 

For in her soul there never dwelt a lie. 

Right from the hand of God her spirit 
came 

Unstained, and she hath ne'er forgotten 
whence 

It came, nor wandered far from thence, 

But laboreth to keep her still the same, 

Near to her place of birth, that she may 
not 

Soil her white raiment with an earthly 
spot, i 

Yet sets she not her soul so steadily 
Above, that she forgets her ties to earth, 
But her whole thought would almost seem 

to be 
How to make glad one lowly human 

hearth ; 
For with a gentle courage she doth strive 
In thought and word and feeling so to 

live 
As to make earth next heaven ; and her 

heart 
Herein doth show its most exceeding 

worth, 
That, bearing in our frailty her just part, 
She hath not shrunk from evils of this 

life, 



But hath gone calmly forth into the 
strife, 

And all its sins and sorrows hath with- 
stood 

With lofty strength of patient woman- 
hood : 

For this I love her great soul more than 
all, 

That, being bound, like us, with earthly 
thrall, 

She walks so bright and heaven-like 

! therein, — 

Too wise, too meek , too womanly, to sin. 

Like a lone star through riven storm- 
clouds seen 
By sailors, tempest-tost upon the sea, 
Telling of rest and peaceful heavens nigh, 
Unto my soul her star-like soul hath 

been, 
Her sight as full of hope and calm to 

me ; — 
For she unto herself hath builded high 
A home serene, wherein to lay her head, 
Earth's noblest thing, a -Woman per- 
fected. 

SERENADE. 

From the close-shut windows gleams no 

spark, 
The night is chilly, the night is dark, 
The poplars shiver, the pine-trees moan, 
My hair by the autumn breeze is blown, 
Under thy window I sing alone, 
Alone, alone, ah woe ! alone! 

The darkness is pressing coldly around, 
The windows shake w T ith a lonely sound, 
The stars are hid and the night is drear, 
The heart of silence throbs in thine ear, 
In thy chamber thou sittest alone, 
A^one, alone, ah woe ! alone ! 

The world is happy, the world is wide, 
Kind hearts are beating on every side ; 
Ah, why should we lie so coldly curled 
Alone in the shell of this great world ? 
Why should we any more be alone ? 
Alone, alone, ah woe ! alone ! 

O, 't is a bitter and dreary word, 
The saddest by man's ear ever heard ! 
We each are young, we each have a heart, 
Why stand we ever coldly apart ? 
Must we forever, then, be alone ? 
Alone, alone, ah woe ! alone ! 



WITH A PRESSED FLOWER. — MY LOVE. 



WITH A PRESSED FLOWER. 

This little blossom from afar 
Hath, come from other lands to thine ; 
For, once, its white and drooping star 
Could see its shadow in the Rhine. 

Perchance some fair-haired German maid 
Hath plucked one from the selfsame 

stalk, 
And numbered over, half afraid, 
Its petals in her evening walk. 

" He loves me, loves me not," she cries ; 
" He loves me more than earth, or 

heaven ! " 
And then glad tears have filled her eyes 
To find the number was uneven. 

And thou must count its petals well, 
Because it is a gift from me ; 
And the last one of all shall tell 
Something I 've often told to thee. 

But here at home, where we were born, 
Thou wilt find flowers just as true, 
Down-bending every summer morn, 
With freshness of New- England dew. 

For Nature, ever kind to love, 

Hath granted them the same sweet 

tongue, 
Whether with German skies above, 
Or here our granite rocks among. 



THE BEGGAR. 

A beggar through the world am I, — 
From place to place I wander by. 
Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me, 
For Christ's sweet sake and charity ! 

A little of thy steadfastness, 
Rounded with leafy gracefulness, 
Old oak, give me, — 
That the world's blasts may round me 

blow, 
And I yield gently to and fro, 
While my stout-hearted trunk below 
And firm-set roots unshaken be. 

Some of thy stern, unyielding might, 
Enduring still through day and night 
Rude tempest - shock and withering 

blight, — 
That I may keep at bay 



The changeful April sky of chance 
And the strong tide of circumstance, — 
Give me, old granite gray, 

Some of thy pensiveness serene, 

Some of thy never-dying green, 

Put in this scrip of mine, — 

That griefs may fall like snow-flakes 

light, 
And deck me in a robe of white, 
Ready to be an angel bright, — 

sweetly mournful pine. 

A little of thy merriment, 
Of thy sparkling, light content, 
Give me, my cheerful brook, — 
That I may still be full of glee 
And gladsomeness, where'er I be, 
Though fickle fate hath prisoned me 
In some neglected nook. 

Ye have been very kind and good 
To me, since I 've been in the wood ; 
Ye have gone nigh to fill my heart ; 
But good by, kind friends, every one, 

1 've far to go ere set of sun ; 

Of all good things I would have part, 
The day was high ere I could start, 
And so my journey 's scarce begun. 

Heaven help me ! how could I forget 

To beg of thee, dear violet ! 

Some of thy modesty, 

That blossoms here as well, unseen, 

As if before the world thou 'dst been, 

0, give, to strengthen me. 



MY LOVE. 



Not as all other women are 
Is she that to my soul is dear ; 
Her glorious fancies come from far, 
Beneath the silver evening-star, 
And yet her heart is ever near. 



Great feelings hath she of her own, 
Which lesser souls may never know ; 
God giveth them to her alone, 
And sweet they are as any tone 
Wherewith the wind may choose to blow. 

in. 
Yet in herself she dwelleth not, 
Although no home were half so fair ; 



EARLIER POEMS. 



No simplest duty is forgot, 
Life hath no dim and lowly spot 
That doth not in her sunshine share. 



IV. 



She doeth little kindnesses, 

Which most leave undone, or despise : 

For naught that sets one heart at ease, 

And giveth happiness or peace, 

Is low-esteemed in her eyes. 



She hath no scorn of common things, 
And, though she seem of other birth, 
Round us her heart intwines and clings, 
And patiently she folds her wings 
To tread the humble paths of earth. 

VI. 

Blessing she is : God made her so, 
And deeds of week-day holiness 
Fall from her noiseless as the snow, 
Nor hath she ever chanced to know 
That aught were easier than to bless. 

vir. 

She is most fair, and thereunto 
Her life doth rightly harmonize ; 
Feeling or thought that was not true 
Ne'er made less beautiful the blue 
Unclouded heaven of her eyes. 

VIII. 

She is a woman : one in whom 
The spring-time of her childish years 
Hath never lost its fresh perfume, 
Though knowing well that life hath room 
For many blights and many tears. 

IX. 

I love her with a love as still 
As a broad river's peaceful might, 
Which, by high tower and lowly mill, 
Goes wandering at its own will, 
And yet doth ever flow aright. 



And, on its full, deep breast serene, 
Like quiet isles my duties lie ; 
It flows around them and between, 
And makes them fresh and fair and green, 
Sweet homes wherein to live and die. 



SUMMER STORM. 

Untremulous in the river clear, 
Toward the sky's image, hangs the im- 
aged bridge ; 
So still the air that I can hear 
The slender clarion of the unseen midge ; 
Out of the stillness, with a gathering 
creep, 
Like rising wind in leaves, which now 

decreases, 
Now lulls, now swells, and all the while 
increases, 
The huddling trample of a drove of 
sheep 
Tilts the loose planks, and then as grad- 
ually ceases 
In dust on the other side"; life's em- 
blem deep, 
A confused noise between two silences, 
Finding at last in dust precarious peace. 
On the wide marsh the purple-blossomed 
grasses 
Soak up the sunshine ; sleeps the 
brimming tide, 
Save when the wedge-shaped wake in 
silence passes 
Of some slow water-rat, whose sinuous 
glide 
Wavers the long green sedge's shade from 

side to side ; 
But up the west, like a rock-shivered 
surge, 
Climbs a great cloud edged with sun- 
whitened spray ; 
Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o'er 
its verge, 
And falling still it seems, and yet it 
climbs alway. 

Suddenly all the sky is hid 
As with the shutting of a lid, 
One by one great drops are falling 

Doubtful and slow, 
Down the pane they are crookedly 
crawling, 
And the wind breathes low ; 
Slowly the circles widen on the 
river, 
Widen and mingle, one and all ; 
Here and there the slenderer flowers 
shiver, 
Struck by an icy rain-drop's fall. 

Now on the hills I hear the thunder 
mutter, 
The wind is gathering in the west ; 



LOVE. 



The upturned leaves first whiten and 
flutter, 
Then droop to a fitful rest ; 
Up from the stream with sluggish flap 
Struggles the gull and floats away ; 
Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder- 
clap, — 
We shall not see the sun go down to- 
day : 
Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh, 
And tramples the grass with terrified 
feet, 
The startled river turns leaden and harsh. 
You can hear the quick heart of the 
tempest beat. 

Look ! look ! that livid flash ! 
And instantly follows the rattling thun- 
der, 
As if some cloud-crag, split asunder, 

Fell, splintering with a ruinous 
crash, 
On the Earth, which crouches in silence 
under ; 
And now a solid gray wall of rain 
Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile ; 
For a breath's space 1 see the blue 
wood again, 
And ere the next heart-beat, the wind- 
hurled pile, 
That seemed but now a league aloof, 
Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched 
roof ; 
Against the windows the storm comes 

dashing, 
Through tattered foliage the hail tears 
crashing, 
The blue lightning flashes, 
The rapid hail clashes, 
The white waves are tumbling, 

And, in one baffled roar, 
Like the toothless sea mumbling 

A rock-bristled shore, 
The thunder is rumbling 
And crashing and crumbling, — 
Will silence return nevermore ? 

Hush! Still as death, 
The tempest holds his breath 
As from a sudden will ; 
The rain stops short, but from the 

eaves 
You see it drop, and hear it from the 
leaves, 
All is so bodingly still ; 
Again, now, now, again 
Plashes the rain in heavy gouts, 



The crinkled lightning 
Seems ever brightening, 
And loud and long 
Again the thunder shouts 
His battle-song, — 
One quivering flash, 
One wildering crash, 
Followed by silence dead and dull, 
As if the cloud, let go, 
Leapt bodily below 
To' whelm the earth in one mad over- 
throw, 
And then a total lull. 

Gone, gone, so soon ! 
No more my half-crazed fancy 

there, 
Can shape a giant in the air, 
No more I see his streaming hair, 
The writhing portent of his form ; — 
The pale and quiet moon 
Makes her calm forehead bare, 
And the last fragments of the storm, 
Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, 
Silent and few, are drifting over me. 



LOVE. 

True Love is but a humble, low-born 
thing, 

And hath its food served up in earthen 
ware ; 

It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, 

Through the every-dayness of this work- 
day world, 

Baring its tender feet to every roughness, 

Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray 

From Beauty's law of plainness and con- 
tent ; 

A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet 
smile 

Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a 
home ; 

Which, when our autumn cometh, as it 
must, 

And life in the chill wind shivers bare 
and leafless, 

Shall still be blest with Indian-summer 
youth 

In bleak November, and, with thankful 
heart, 

Smile on its ample stores of garnered 
fruit, 

As full of sunshine to our aged eyes 

As when it nursed the blossoms of our 
spring. 



8 



EAKLIER POEMS. 



Such is true Love, which steals into the 

heart 
With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn 
That kisses smooth the rough brows of 

the dark, 
And hath its will through blissful gen- 
tleness, — 
Not like a rocket, which, with savage 

glare, 
Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and 

leaves the night 
Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes ; 
A love that gives and takes, that seeth 

faults, 
Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle 

points, 
But loving-kindly ever looks them down 
With the o'er coming faith of meek for- 
giveness; 
A love that shall be new and fresh each 

hour, 
As is the golden mystery of sunset, 
Or the sweet coming of the evening-star, 
Alike, and yet most unlike, every day, 
And seeming ever best and fairest now; 
A love that doth not kneel for what it 

seeks, 
But faces Truth and Beauty as their 

peer, 
Showing its worthiness of noble thoughts 
By a clear sense of inward nobleness ; 
A love that in its object findeth not 
All grace and beauty, and enough to sate 
Its thirst of blessing, but, in all of good 
Found there, it sees but Heaven-granted 

types 
Of good and beauty in the soul of man, 
And traces, in the simplest heart that 

beats, 
A family-likeness to its chosen one, 
That claims of it the rights of brother- 
\ hood. 

[ For love is blind but with the fleshly 

eye, _ 

That so its inner sight may be more clear ; 
And outward shows of beauty only so 
Are needful at the first, as is a hand 
To guide and to uphold an infant's steps : 
Great spirits need them not : their earnest 

look 
Pierces the body's mask of thin disguise, 
And beauty ever is to them revealed, 
Behind the unshapeliest, meanest lump 

of clay, 
With arms outstretched and eager face 

ablaze, 
Yearning to be but understood and loved. 



TO PERDITA, SINGING. 

Thy voice is like a fountain, 

Leaping up in clear moonshine ; 
Silver, silver, ever mounting, 
Ever sinking, 
Without thinking, 
To that brimful heart of thine. 
Every sad and happy feeling, 
Thou hast had in bygone years, 
Through thy lips comes stealing, steal- 
ing. 
Clear and low ; 
All thy smiles and all thy tears 
In thy voice awaken, 
And sweetness, wove of joy and woe, 
From their teaching it hath taken : 
Feeling and music move together, 
Like a swan and shadow ever 
Floating on a sky-blue river 
In a day of cloudless weather. 

It hath caught a touch of sadness, 

Yet it is not sad ; 
It hath tones of clearest gladness, 
s Yet it is not glad ; 

(A dim, sweet twilight voice it is 

Where to-day's accustomed blue 
Is over-grayed with memories, 

With starry feelings quivered through^ 

Thy voice is like a fountain 
Leaping up in sunshine bright, 

And I never weary counting 
Its clear droppings, lone and single, 
Or when in one full gush they mingle, 

Shooting in melodious light. 

Thine is music such as yields 
Feelings of old brooks and fields, 
And, around this pent-up room, 
Sheds a woodland, free perfume ; 

0, thus forever sing to me ! 
0, thus forever ! 
The green, bright grass of childhood 
bring to me, 
Flowing like an emerald river, 
And the bright blue skies above ! 
0, sing them back, as fresh as ever, 
Into the bosom of my love, — 
The sunshine and the merriment, 
The unsought, evergreen content, 

Of that never cold time, 
The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went 

Through and through the old time ! 

Peace sits within thine eyes, 

With white hands crossed in joyful rest, 



THE MOON. — SONG. 



9 



While, through thy lips and face, arise 
The melodies from out thy breast ; 

She sits and sings, 

With folded wings 

And white arms crost, 
"Weep not for bygone things, 

They are not lost : 
The beauty which the summer time 
O'er thine opening spirit shed, 
The forest oracles sublime 
That filled thy soul with joyous dread, 
The scent of every smallest flower 
That made thy heart sweet for an 

hour, — 
Yea, every holy influence, 
Flowing to thee, thou knewest not 

whence, 
In thine eyes to-day is seen, 
Fresh as it hath ever been ; 
Promptings of Nature, beckonings 

sweet, 
Whatever led thy childish feet, 
Still will linger unawares 
The guiders of thy silver hairs ; 
Every look and every word 
Which thou givest forth to-day, 
Tell of the singing of the bird 
Whose music stilled thy boyish play. " 

Thy voice is like a fountain, 
Twinkling up in sharp starlight, 
When the moon behind the mountain 
Dims the low East with faintest white, 
Ever darkling, 
Ever sparkling, 
We know not if 't is dark or bright ; 
But, when the great moon hath rolled 
round, 
And, sudden-slow, its solemn power 
Grows from behind its black, clear-edged 
bound, 
No spot of dark the fountain keepeth, 
But, swift as opening eyelids, leapeth 
Into a waving silver flower. 



THE MOON. 

My soul was like the sea, 

Before the moon was made, 
Moaning in vague immensity, 

Of its own strength afraid, 

Unrestful and unstaid. 
Through every rift it foamed in vain, 

About its earthly prison, 
Seeking some unknown thing in pain, 
And sinking restless back again, 



For yet no moon had risen : 
Its only voice a vast dumb moan, 

Of utterless anguish speaking, 
It lay unhopefully alone, 

And lived but in an aimless seeking. 

So was my soul ; but when 't was full 

Of unrest to o'erloading, 
A voice of something beautiful 

Whispered a dim foreboding, 
And yet so soft, so sweet, so low, 
It had not more of joy than woe ; 
And, as the sea doth oft lie still, 

Making its waters meet, 
As if by an unconscious will, 

For the moon's silver feet, 
So lay my soul within mine eyes 
When thou, its guardian moon, didst rise. 

And now, howe'er its waves above 
May toss and seem uneaseful, 

One strong, eternal law of Love, 
With guidance sure and peaceful, 

As calm and natural as breath, 

Moves its great deeps through life and 
death. 



REMEMBERED MUSIC. 

A FRAGMENT. 

Thick-rushing, like an ocean vast 
Of bisons the far prairie shaking, 
The notes crowd heavily and fast 
As surfs, one plunging while the last 
Draws seaward from its foamy breaking. 

Or in low murmurs they began, 
Rising and rising momently, 

As o'er a harp JMian 

A fitful breeze, until they ran 
Up to a sudden ecstasy. 

And then, like minute-drops of rain 

Ringing in water silverly, 
They lingering dropped and dropped 

again, 
Till it was almost like a pain 

To listen when the next would be. 



SONG. 

TO M. L. 

A lily thou wast when I saw thee first, 
A lily-bud not opened quite, 
That hourly grew more pure and 
white, 



10 



EARLIER POEMS. 



By morning, and noontide, and evening 
nursed : 
In all of nature thou hadst thy share ; 
Thou wast waited on 
By the wind and sun ; 
The rain and the dew for thee took care ; 
It seemed thou never couldst be more 
fair. 

( A lily thou wast when I saw thee first, 
A lily-bud ; but 0, how strange, 
How full of wonder was the change, 
"When, ripe with all sweetness, thy full 
bloom burst ! 
How did the tears to my glad eyes start, 
When the woman-flower 
Reached its blossoming hour, 
And 1 saw the warm deeps of thy 
golden heart ! ) 

Glad death may pluck thee, but never 
before 
The gold dust of thy bloom divine 
Hath dropped from thy heart into 
mine, 
To quicken its faint germs of heavenly 
lore ; 
For no breeze comes nigh thee but car- 
ries away 
Some impulses bright 
Of fragrance and light, 
Which fall upon souls that are lone 

and astray, 
To plant fruitful hopes of the flower of 
day. 

ALLEGRA. 

I would more natures were like thine, 
That never casts a glance before, — 

Thou Hebe, who thy heart's bright wine 
So lavishly to all dost pour, 

That we who drink forget to pine, 
And can but dream of bliss in store. 

Thou canst not see a shade in life ; 

With sunward instinct thou dost rise, 
And, leaving clouds below at strife, 

Gazest undazzled at the skies, 
With all their blazing splendors rife, 

A songful lark with eagle's eyes. 

Thou wast some foundling whom the 
Hours 
Nursed, laughing, with the milk of 
Mirth ; 
Some influence more gay than ours 
Hath ruled thy nature from its birth, 



As if thy natal stars were flowers 

That shook their seeds round thee on 
earth. 

And thou, to lull thine infant rest, 
Wast cradled like an Indian child ; 

All pleasant winds from south and west 
With lullabies thine ears beguiled, 

Rocking thee in thine oriole's nest, 
Till Nature looked at thee and smiled. 

Thine every fancy seems to borrow 
A sunlight from thy childish years, 

Making a golden cloud of sorrow, 
A hope-lit rainbow out of tears, — 

Thy heart is certain of to-morrow, 
Though 'yond to-day it never peers. 

I would more natures were like thine, 
So innocently wild and free, 

Whose sad thoughts, even, leap and shine, 
Like sunny wavelets in the sea, 

Making us mindless of the brine, 
In gazing on the brilliancy. 



THE FOUNTAIN. 

Into the sunshine, 

Full of the light, 
Leaping and flashing 

From morn till night ! 

Into the moonlight, 
Whiter than snow, . 

Waving so flower-like 
When the winds blow ! 

Into the starlight 
Rushing in spray, 

Happy at midnight, 
Happy by day ! 

Ever in motion, 

Blithesome and cheery, 
Still climbing heavenward, 

Never aweary : — 

Glad of all weathers, 
Still seeming best, 

Upward or downward, 
Motion thy rest ; — 

Full of a nature 
Nothing can tame, 

Changed every moment, 
Ever the same ; — 



ODE. 



11 



Ceaseless aspiring, 

Ceaseless content, 
Darkness or sunshine 

Thy element ; — 

Glorious fountain ! 

Let my heart be 
Fresh, changeful, constant, 

Upward, like thee ! 

ODE. 



In the old days of awe and keen-eyed 
wonder, 
The Poet's song with blood- warm truth 
was rife ; 
He saw the mysteries which circle under 
The outward shell and skin of daily life. 
Nothing to him were fleeting time and 
fashion, 
His soul was led by the eternal law ; 
There was in him no hope of fame, no 
passion, 
But with calm, godlike eyes he only 
saw. 
He did not sigh o'er heroes dead and 
buried, 
Chief-mourner at the Golden Age's 
hearse, 
Nor deem that souls whom Charon grim 
had ferried 

(Alone were fitting themes of epic verse : 
He could believe the promise of to- 
morrow, 
And feel the wondrous meaning of to- 
day ; 
He had a deeper faith in holy sorrow 
Than the world's seeming loss could 
take away.") 
To know the heart of all things was his 
duty, 
All things did sing to him to make him 
wise, 
And, with a sorrowful and conquering 
beauty, 
The soul of all looked grandly from his 
eyes. 
He gazed on all within him and without 
him, 
He watched the flowing of Time's steady 
tide, 
And shapes of glory floated all about 
him 
And whispered to him, and he prophe- 
sied. 



Than all men he more fearless was and 
freer, 
And all his brethren cried with one 
accord, — 
"Behold the holy man! Behold the 
jSeer ! 
Him who hath spoken with the unseen 
Lord ! " 
He to his heart with large embrace had 
taken 
The universal sorrow of mankind, 
And, from that root, a shelter never 
shaken, 
The tree of wisdom grew with sturdy 
rind. 
He could interpret well the wondrous 
voices 
Which to the calm and silent spirit 
come ; 
He knew that the One Soul no more 
rejoices 
In the star's anthem than the insect's 
hum. 
He in his heart was ever meek and 
humble, 
And yet with kingly pomp his num- 
bers ran, 
As he foresaw how all things false should 
crumble 
Before the free, uplifted soul of man : 
And, when he was made full to overflow- 
ing 
With all the loveliness of heaven and 
earth, 
Out rushed his song, like molten iron 
glowing, 
To show God sitting by the humblest 
hearth. 
With calmest courage he was ever ready 
To teach that action was the truth of 
thought, 
And, with strong arm and purpose firm 
and steady, 
An anchor for the drifting world he 
wrought. 
So did he make the meanest man par- 
taker 
Of all his brother-gods unto him 
gave; 
All souls did reverence him and name 
him Maker, 
And when he died heaped temples on 
his grave. 
And still his deathless words of light are 
swimming 
Serene throughout the great deep in- 
finite 



12 



EARLIER POEMS. 



Of human soul, unwaning and undim- 
. ming, 
To cheer and guide the mariner at 
night. 



But now the Poet is an empty rhymer 

Who lies with idle elbow on the grass, 
And fits his singing, like a cunning 
timer, 
To all men's prides and fancies as they 
pass. 
Not his the song, which, in its metre 
holy, 
Chimes with the music of the eternal 
stars, 
Humbling the tyrant, lifting up the 
lowly, 
And sending sun through the soul's 
prison-bars. 
Maker no more, — no ! unmaker 
rather, 
For he unmakes who doth not all put 
forth 
The power given freely by our loving 
Father 
To show the body's dross, the spirit's 
worth. 
Awake ! great spirit of the ages olden ! 
Shiver the mists that hide thy starry 
lyre, 
And let man's soul be yet again beholden 
To thee for wings to soar to her desire. 
0, prophesy no more to-morrow's splen- 
dor, 
Be no more shamefaced to speak out 
for Truth, 
Lay on her altar all the gushings tender, 
The hope, the fire, the loving faith of 
youth ! 
0, prophesy no more the Maker's com- 
ing* 
Say not his onward footsteps thou 
canst hear 
In the dim void, like to the awful hum- 
ming 
Of the great wings of some new-light- 
ed sphere ! 
0, prophesy no more, but be the Poet ! 
\This longing was but granted unto 
thee 
*' That, when all beauty thou couldst feel 
and know it, 
That beauty in its highest thou couldst 
be.> 
thou who moanest tost with sealike 
longings, 



Who dimly hearest voices call on thee, 
Whose soul is overfilled with mighty 
throngings 
Of love, and fear, and glorious agony, 
Thou of the toil-strung hands and iron 
sinews 
And soul by Mother Earth with free- 
dom fed, 
In whom the hero-spirit yet continues, 
The old free nature is not chained or 
dead, 
Arouse ! let thy soul break in music- 
thunder, 
Let loose the ocean that is in thee 
pent, 
Pour forth thy hope, thy fear, thy love, 
thy wonder, 
And tell the age what all its signs 
have meant. 
Where'er thy wildered crowd of brethren 
jostles, 
Where'er there lingers but a shadow of 
wrong, 
There still is need of martyrs and apos- 
tles, 
There still are texts for never-dying 
song : 
From age to age man's still aspiring 
spirit 
Finds wider scope and sees with clearer 
eyes, 
And thou in larger measure dost inherit 
What made thy great forerunners free 
and wise. 
Sit thou enthroned where the Poet's 
mountain 
Above the thunder lifts its silent 
peak, 
And roll thy songs down like a gathering 
fountain, 
They all may drink and find the rest 
* they seek. 

ySing ! there shall silence grow in earth 
and heaven, 
A silence of deep awe and wondering ; 
For, listening gladly, bend the angels, 
even, 
To hear a mortal like an angel sing. 

in. 

Among the toil-worn poor my soul is 
seeking 
For one to bring the Maker's name to 
light, 

To be the voice of that almighty speak- 
ing 



THE FATHERLAND. 



13 



Which every age demands to do it 
right. 
Proprieties our silken bards environ ; 
He who would be the tongue of this 
wide land 
Must string his harp with chords of 
sturdy iron 
And strike it with a toil-imbrowned 
* hand ; 
One who hath dwelt with Nature well 
attended, 
"Who hath learnt wisdom from her 
mystic books, 
Whose soul with all her countless lives 
hath blended, 
So that all beauty awes us in his looks ; 
Who not with body's waste his soul hath 
pampered, 
Who as the clear northwestern wind is 
free, 
Who walks with Form's observances un- 
hampered, 
And follows the One Will obediently ; 
Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy 
summit, 
Control a lovely prospect every way ; 
Who doth not sound God's sea with 
earthly plummet, 
And find a bottom still of worthless 
clay ; 
Who heeds not how the lower gusts are 
working, 
Knowing that one sure wind blows on 
above, 
And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurk- 

One God-built shrine of reverence and 
love ; 
Who sees all stars that wheel their shin- 
ing marches 
Around the centre fixed of Destiny, 
Where the encircling soul serene o'er- 
arches 
The moving globe of being like a sky ; 
Who feels that God and Heaven's great 
deeps are nearer 
Him to whose heart his fellow-man is 
nigh, 
Who doth not hold his soul's own free- 
dom dearer 
Than that of all his brethren, low or 
high ; 
Who to the Eight can feel himself the 
truer 
For being gently patient with the 
wrong, 
Who sees a brother in the evil-doer, 



And finds in Love the heart's-blood of 
his song ; — 
^This, this is he for whom the world is 
waiting 
To sing the beatings of its mighty 
heart, } 
Too long hath it been patient with the 
grating 
Of scrannel-pipes, and heard it mis- 
i named Art. 

{To him the smiling soul of man shall 
listen, 
Laying awhile its crown of thorns 
aside, .. 
And once again in every eye shall glisten 

The glory of a nature satisfied. J 
His verse shall have a great command- 
ing motion, 
Heaving and swelling with a melody 
Learnt of the sky, the river, and the 
ocean, 
And all the pure, majestic things that 
be. 
Awake, then, thou ! we pine for thy 
great presence 
To make us feel the soul once more 
sublime, 
We are of far too infinite an essence 
To rest contented with the lies of 
Time. 
Speak out ! and lo ! a hush of deepest 
wonder 
Shall sink o'er all this many-voiced 
scene, 
As when a sudden burst of rattling 
thunder 
Shatters the blueness of a sky serene. 



THE FATHERLAND. 

Where is the true man's fatherland ? 

Is it where he by chance is born ? 

Doth not the yearning spirit scorn 
In such scant borders to be spanned ? 
yes ! his fatherland must be 
As the blue heaven wide and free ! 

Is it alone where freedom is, 

Where God is God and man is man ? 

Doth he not claim a broader span 
For the soul's love of home than this ? 
yes ! his fatherland must be 
As the blue heaven wide and free ! 

Where'er a human heart doth wear 
Joy's mjTtle- wreath or sorrow's gyves, 



14 



EARLIER POEMS. 



Where'er a human spirit strives 
After a life more true and fair, 
There is the true man's birthplace grand, 
His is a world-wide fatherland ! 

Where'er a single slave doth pine, 

Where'er one man may help an- 
other, — 
Thank God for such a birthright, 
brother, — 
That spot of earth is thine and mine ! 
There is the true man's birthplace grand, 
His is a world-wide fatherland ! 



THE FORLORN. 

The night is dark, the stinging sleet, 
Swept by the bitter gusts of air, 

Drives whistling down the lonely street, 
And stiffens on the pavement bare. 

The street-lamps flare and struggle dim 
Through the white sleet-clouds as they 
pass, 

Or, governed by a boisterous whim, 
Drop down and rattle on the glass. 

One poor, heart-broken, outcast girl 
Faces the east-wind's searching flaws, 

And, as about her heart they whirl, 
Her tattered cloak more tightly draws. 

The flat brick walls look cold and bleak, 
Her bare feet to the sidewalk freeze ; 

Yet dares she not a shelter seek, 

Though faint with hunger and disease. 

The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare, 
And, piercing through her garments 
thin, 

Beats on her shrunken breast, and there 
Makes colder the cold heart within. 

She lingers where a ruddy glow 

Streams outward through an open 
shutter, 

Adding more bitterness to woe, 
More loneness to desertion utter. 

One half the cold she had not felt 
Until she saw this gush of light 

Spread warmly forth, and seem to melt 
Its slow way through the deadening 
night. 

She hears a woman's voice within, 
Singing sweet words her childhood 
knew, 



And years of misery and sin 

Furl off, and leave her heaven blue. 

Her freezing heart, like one who sinks 
Outwearied in the drifting snow, 

Drowses to deadly sleep and thinks 
No longer of its hopeless woe : 

Old fields, and clear blue summer days, 
Old meadows, green with grass and 
trees, 
That shimmer through the trembling 
haze 
And whiten in the western breeze, — 

Old faces, — all the friendly past 
Rises within her heart again, 

And sunshine from her childhood cast 
Makes summer of the icy rain. 

Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow, 

From all humanity apart, 
She hears old footsteps wandering slow 

Through the lone chambers of the 
heart. 

Outside the porch before the door, 
Her cheek upon the cold, hard stone, 

She lies, no longer foul and poor, 
No longer dreary and alone. 

Next morning something heavily 
Against the opening door did weigh, 

And there, from sin and sorrow free, 
A woman on the threshold lay. 

A smile upon the wan lips told 
That she had found a calm release, 

And that, from out the want and cold, 
The song had borne her soul in peace. 

For, whom the heart of man shuts out, 
Sometimes the heart of God takes in, 

And fences them all round about 

With silence mid the world's loud din ; 

And one of his great charities 
Is Music, and it doth not scorn 

To close the lids upon the eyes 
Of the polluted and forlorn ; 

Far was she from her childhood's home, 
Farther in guilt had wandered thence, 

Yet thither it had bid her come 
To die in maiden innocence. 



MIDNIGHT. — THE HERITAGE. 



15 



MIDNIGHT. 

The moon shines white and silent 
On the mist, which, like a tide 

Of some enchanted ocean, 

O'er the wide marsh doth glide, 

Spreading its ghost-like billows 
Silently far and wide. 

A vague and starry magic 
Makes all things mysteries, 

And lures the earth's dumb spirit 
Up to the longing skies, — 

I seem to hear dim whispers, 
And tremulous replies. 

The fireflies o'er the meadow 

In pulses come and go ; 
The elm -trees' heavy shadow 

Weighs on the grass below ; 
And faintly from the distance 

The dreaming cock doth crow. 

All things look strange and mystic, 

The very bushes swell 
And take wild shapes and motions, 

As if beneath a spell, — 
They seem not the same lilacs 

From childhood known so well. 

The snow of deepest silence 
O'er everything doth fall, 

So beautiful and quiet, 
And yet so like a pall, — 

As if all life were ended, 
And rest were come to all. 






wild and wondrous midnight, 
There is a might in thee 

To make the charmed body 
Almost like spirit be, 

And give it some faint glimpses 
Of immortality ! ) 

A PRAYER. 



God ! do not let my loved one die, 
But rather wait until the time 

That I am grown in purity 

Enough to enter thy pure clime, 

Then take me, I will gladly go, 

So that my love remain below ! 

0, let her stay ! She is by birth 

What I through death must learn to 
be ; 



We need her more on our poor earth 
Than thou canst need in heaven with 
thee : 
She hath her wings already, I 
Must burst this earth-shell ere I fly. 

Then, God, take me ! We shall be near, 
More near than ever, each to each: 

Her angel ears will find more clear 
My heavenly than my earthly speech ; 

And still , as I draw nigh to thee, 

Her soul and mine shall closer be. 



THE HERITAGE. 

The rich man's son inherits lands, 
And piles of brick, and stone, and 
gold, 

And he inherits soft white hands, 
And tender flesh that fears the cold, 
Nor dares to wear a garment old ; 

A heritage, it seems to me, 

One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 

The rich man's son inherits cares ; 

The bank may break, the factory burn, 
A breath may burst his bubble shares, . 

And soft white hands could hardly 
earn 

A living that would serve his turn ; 
A heritage, it seems to me, 
One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 

The rich man's son inherits wants, 
His stomach craves for dainty fare ; 

With sated heart, he hears the pants 
Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare, 
And wearies in his easy-chair ; 

A heritage, it seems to me, 

One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 

What doth the poor man's son inherit ? 
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, 

A hardy frame, a hardier spirit ; 
King of two hands, he does his part 
In every useful toil and art ; 

A heritage, it seems to me, 

A king might wish to hold in fee. 

What doth the poor man's son inherit ? 
Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things, 

A rank adjudged by toil-won merit, 
Content that from employment springs, 
A heart that in his labor sings ; 

A heritage, it seems to me, 

A king might wish to hold in fee. 



16 



EARLIER POEMS. 



What doth the poor man's son inherit ? 
A patience learned of being poor, 

Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it, 
A fellow-feeling that is sure 
To make the outcast bless his door ; 

A heritage, it seems to me, 

A king might wish to hold in fee. 

rich man's son ! there is a toil 
That with all others level stands ; 

Large charity doth never soil, 

But only whiten, soft white hands, — 
This is the best crop from thy lands ; 

A heritage, it seems to be, 

Worth being rich to hold in fee. 

poor man's son ! scorn not thy state ; 
There is worse weariness than thine, 

In merely being rich and great ; 
Toil only gives the soul to shine, 
And makes rest fragrant and be- 
nign ; 

A heritage, it seems to me, 

Worth being poor to hold in fee. 

Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, 
Are equal in the earth at last ; 

Both, children of the same dear God, 
Prove title to your heirship vast 
By record of a well-filled past ; 

A heritage, it seems to me, 

Well worth a life to hold in fee. 



THE ROSE : A BALLAD. 



In his tower sat the poet 

Gazing on the roaring sea, 
"Take this rose," he sighed, "and throw 
it 

Where there 's none that loveth me. 
On the rock the billow bursteth 

And sinks back into the seas, 
But in vain my spirit thirsteth 

So to burst and be at ease. 
Take, sea ! the tender blossom 

That hath lain against my breast ; 
On thy black and angry bosom 

It will find a surer rest. 
Life is vain, and love is hollow, 

Ugly death stands there behind, 
Hate and scorn and hunger follow 

Him that toileth for his kind." 
Forth into the night he hurled it, 

And with bitter smile did mark 
How the surly tempest whirled it 

Swift into the hungry dark. 



Foam and spray drive back to leeward, 
And the gale, with dreary moan, 

Drifts the helpless blossom seaward, 
Through the breakers all alone. 



Stands, a maiden, on the morrow, 

Musing by the wave-beat strand, 
Half in hope and half in sorrow, 

Tracing words upon the sand: 
" Shall I ever then behold him 

Who hath been my life so long, — 
Ever to this sick heart fold him, — 

Be the spirit of his song ? 
Touch not, sea, the blessed letters 

I have traced upon thy shore, 
Spare his name whose spirit fetters 

Mine with love forevermore ! " 
Swells the tide and overflows it, 

But, with omen pure and meet, 
Brings a little rose, and throws it 

Humbly at the maiden's feet. 
Full of bliss she takes the token, 

And, upon her snowy breast, 
Soothes the ruffled petals broken 

With the ocean's fierce unrest. 
" Love is thine, heart ! and surely 

Peace shall also be thine own, 
For the heart that trust eth purely 

Never long can pine alone." 



In his tower sits the poet, 

Blisses new and strange to him 
Fill his heart and overflow it 

With a wonder sweet and dim. 
Up the beach the ocean slidetli 

With a whisper of delight, 
And the moon in silence glideth 

Through the peaceful biue of night. 
Rippling o'er the poet's shoulder 

Flows a maiden's golden hair, 
Maiden lips, with love grown bolder, 

Kiss his moon-lit forehead bare. 
" Life is joy, and love is power, 

Death all fetters doth unbind, 
Strength and wisdom only flower 

When we toil for all our kind. 
Hope is truth, — the future giveth 

More than present takes away, 
And the soul forever liveth 

Nearer God from day to day." 
Not a word the maiden uttered, 

{ Fullest hearts are slow to speak,^ 
But a withered rose-leaf fluttered 

Down upon the poet's cheek. 



SONG. — ROSALINE. 



17 



SONG. 

Violet ! sweet violet ! 
Thine eyes are full of tears ; 
Are they wet 
Even yet 
With the thought of other years ? 
Or with gladness are they full, 
For the night so beautiful, 
And longing for those far-off spheres ? 

Loved one of my youth thou wast, 
Of my merry youth, 
And I see, 
Tearfully, 
All the fair and sunny past, 
All its openness and truth, 
Ever fresh and green in thee 
As the moss is in the sea. 

Thy little heart, that hath with love 
Grown colored like the sky above, 
On which thou lookest ever, — 
Can it know 
All the woe 
Of hope for what returneth never, 
All the sorrow and the longing 
To these hearts of ours belonging ? 

Out on it ! no foolish pining 

For the sky 

Dims thine eye, 
Or for the stars so calmly shining ; 
Like thee let this soul of mine 
Take hue from that wherefor I long, 
Self- stayed and high, serene and strong, 
Not satisfied with hoping — but divine. 

Violet ! dear violet ! 

Thy blue eyes are only wet 
With joy and love of Him who sent thee, 
And for the fulfilling sense 
Of that glad obedience 
Which made thee all that Nature meant 
thee ! 

ROSALINE. 

Thou look'dst on me all yesternight, 
Thine eyes were blue, thy hair was bright 
As when we murmured our troth-plight 
Beneath the thick stars, Rosaline ! 
Thy hair was braided on thy head, 
As on the day we two were wed, 
Mine eyes scarceknew if thou wert dead, — 
But my shrunk heart knew, Rosaline ! 



The death-watch ticked behind the wall, 
The blackness rustled like a pall, 
The moaning wind did rise and fall 
Among the bleak pines, Rosaline ! 
My heart beat thickly in mine ears : 
The lids may shut out fleshly fears, 
But still the spirit sees and hears, — 
Its eyes are lidless, Rosaline ! 

A wildness rushing suddenly, 

A knowing some ill shape is nigh, 

A wish for death, a fear to die, — 

Is not this vengeance, Rosaline ? 

A loneliness that is not lone, 

A love quite withered up and gone, 

A strong soul trampled from its throne, — 

What wouldst thou further, Rosaline ? 

'T is drear such moonless nights as these, 
Strange sounds are out upon the breeze, 
And the leaves shiver in the trees, 
And then thou comest, Rosaline ! 
I seem to hear the mourners go, 
With long black garments trailing slow, 
And plumes anodding to and fro, 
As once I heard them, Rosaline ! 

Thy shroud is all of snowy white, 
And, in the middle of the night, 
Thou standest moveless and upright, 
Gazing upon me, Rosaline ! 
There is no sorrow in thine eyes, 
But evermore that meek surprise, — 

God ! thy gentle spirit tries 
To deem me guiltless, Rosaline ! 

Above thy grave the robin sings, 

And swarms of bright and happy things 

Flit all about with sunlit wings, — 

But I am cheerless, Rosaline ! 

The violets on the hillock toss, 

The gravestone is o'ergrown with moss ; 

For nature feels not any loss, — 

But I am cheerless, Rosaline ! 

1 did not know when thou wast dead ; 
A blackbird whistling overhead 
Thrilled through my brain ; I would have 

fled, 
But dared not leave thee, Rosaline ! 
The sun rolled down, and very soon, 
Like a great fire, the awful moon 
Rose, stained with blood, and thenaswoon 
Crept chilly o'er me, Rosaline ! 

The stars came out ; and, one by one, 
Each an#el from his silver throne 



18 



EARLIER POEMS. 



Looked down and saw what I had done : 

I dared not hide me, Rosaline ! 

I crouched ; I feared thy corpse would cry 

Against me to God's quiet sky, 

I thought I saw the blue lips try 

To utter something, Rosaline ! 

I waited with a maddened grin 
To hear that voice ail icy thin 
Slide forth and tell my deadly sin 
To hell and heaven, Rosaline ! 
But no voice came, and then it seemed, 
That, if the very corpse had screamed, 
The sound like sunshine glad had streamed 
Through that dark stillness, Rosaline ! 

And then, amid the silent night, 

I screamed with horrible delight, 

And in my brain an awful light 

Did seem to crackle, Rosaline ! 

It is my curse ! sweet memories fall 

From me like snow, — and only all 

Of that one night, like cold worms, crawl 

My doomed heart over, Rosaline ! 

Why wilt thou haunt me with thine eyes, 
"Wherein such blessed memories, 
Such pitying forgiveness lies, 
Than hate more bitter, Rosaline ! 
Woe 's me ! I know that love so high 
As thine, true soul, could never die, 
And with mean clay in churchyard lie, — 
Would it might be so, Rosaline ! 



A REQUIEM. 

Ay, pale and silent maiden, 

Cold as thou liest there, 
Thine was the sunniest nature 

That ever drew the air, 
The wildest and most wayward, 

And yet so gently kind, 
Thou seemedst but to body 

A breath of summer wind. 

Into the eternal shadow 

That girds our life around, 
Into the infinite silence 

Wherewith Death's shore is bound, 
Thou hast gone forth, beloved ! 

And I were mean to weep, 
That thou hast left Life's shallows, 

And dost possess the Deep. 

Thou liest low and silent, 
Thy heart is cold and still, 



Thine eyes are shut forever, 
And Death hath had his will ; 

He loved and would have taken, 
I loved and would have kept, 

We strove, — and he was stronger, 
And I have never wept. 

Let him possess thy body, 

Thy soul is still with me, 
More sunny and more gladsome 

Than it was wont to be : 
Thy body was a fetter 

That bound me to the flesh, 
Thank God that it is broken, 

And now I live afresh ! 

Now I can see thee clearly ; 

The dusky cloud of clay, 
That hid thy starry spirit, 

Is rent and blown away: 
To earth I give thy body, 

Thy spirit to the sky, 
I saw its bright wings growing, 

And knew T that thou must fly. 

Now I can love thee truly, 

For nothing comes between 
The senses and the spirit, 

The seen and the unseen ; 
Lifts the eternal shadow, 

The silence bursts apart, 
And the soul's boundless future 

Is present in my heart. 



A PARABLE. 

Worn and footsore was the Prophet, 
When he gained the holy hill ; 

" God has left the earth," he murmured, 
" Here his presence lingers still. 

" God of all the olden prophets, 
Wilt thou speak with men no more? 

Have I not as truly served thee 
As thy chosen ones of yore ? 

" Hear me, guider of my fathers, 
Lo ! a humble heart is mine ; 

By thy mercy I beseech thee 
Grant thy servant but a sign ! " 

Bowing then his head, he listened 
For an answer to his prayer ; 

No loud burst of thunder followed, 
Not a murmur stirred the air : — 



SONG. — SONNETS. 



19 



But the tuft of moss before him 
Opened while he waited yet, 

And, from out the rock's hard bosom, 
Sprang a tender violet. 

' ' God ! I thank thee, " said the Prophet ; 

" Hard of heart and blind was I, 
Looking to the holy mountain 

For the gift of prophecy. 

"Still thou speakest with thy children 

Freely as in eld sublime ; 
Humbleness, and love, and patience, 

Still give empire over time. 

" Had I trusted in my nature, 
And had faith in lowly things, 

Thou thyself wouldst then have sought 
me, 
And set free my spirit's wings. 

" But I looked for signs and wonders, 
That o'er men should give me sway; 

Thirsting to be more than mortal, 
I was even less than clay. 

"Ere I entered on my journey, 

As I girt my loins to start, 
Ran to me my little daughter, 

The beloved of my heart ; — 



" In her hand she held a flower, 
Like to this as like may be, 

Which, beside my very threshold, 
She had plucked and brought to me. 1 

SONG. 

moonlight deep and tender, 

A year and more agone, 
Your mist of golden splendor 

Round my betrothal shone ! 

elm-leaves dark and dewy, 

The very same ye seem, 
The low wind trembles through ye, 

Ye murmur in my dream ! 

river, dim with distance, , 

Flow thus forever by, 
A part of my existence 

Within your heart doth He ! 

stars, ye saw our meeting, 

Two beings and one soul, 
Two hearts so madly beating 

To mingle and be whole ! 

happy night, deliver 

Her kisses back to me, 
Or keep them all, and give her 

A blissful dream of me ! 



SONNETS. 



TO A. C. L. 

Through suffering and sorrow thou hast 

passed 
To show us what a woman true may be : 
They have not taken sympathy from thee, 
Nor made thee any other than thou wast, 
Save as some tree, which, in a sudden 

blast, 
Sheddeth those blossoms, that are weakly 

grown, 
Upon the air, but keepeth every one 
Whose strength gives warrant of good 

fruit at last : 
■So thou hast shed some blooms of gay- 

ety, 
But never one of steadfast cheerfulness ; 



Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity 
Robbed thee of any faith in happiness, 
But rather cleared thine inner eyes to see 
How many simple ways there are to bless. 



n. 

What were I, Love, if I were stripped of 

thee, 
If thine eyes shut me out whereby I live, 
Thou, who unto my calmer soul dost give 
Knowledge, and Truth, and holy Mys- 
tery, 
Wherein Truth mainly lies for those who 

see 
Beyond the earthly and the fugitive, 
Who in the grandeur of the soul believe, 
And only in the Infinite are free ? 



20 



EARLIER POEMS. 



Without thee I were naked, bleak, and 

bare 
As yon dead cedar on the sea-cliff's brow ; 
And Nature's teachings, which come to 

me now, 
Common and beautiful as light and air, 
Would be as fruitless as a stream which 

still 
Slips through the wheel of some old 

ruined mill. 



III. 

I would not have this perfect love of 

ours 
Grow from a single root, a single stem, 
Bearing no goodly fruit, but only flowers 
That idly hide life's iron diadem : 
it should grow alway like that Eastern 

tree 
Whose limbs take root and spread forth 

constantly ; 
That love for one, from which there doth 
1 not spring 

Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing. 
Not in another world, as poets prate, 
Dwell we apart above the tide of things, 
High floating o'er earth's clouds on faery 

wings ; 
But our pure love doth ever elevate 
Into a holy bond of brotherhood 
All earthly things, making them pure 

and good. 

IV. 

" For this true nobleness I seek in vain, 
In woman and in man I find it not ; 
I almost weary of my earthly lot, 
My life-springs are dried up with burn- 
ing pain." 
Thou fmd'st it not ? I pray thee look 

again, 
Look inward through the depths of thine 

own soul. 
How is it with thee ? Art thou sound 

and whole ? 
Doth narrow search show thee no earthly 

stain ? 
( Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies 
In other men, sleeping, but never dead, 
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own ; 
Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes, 
Then will pure light around thy path be 

shed, 
And thou wilt nevermore be sad and 

lone. ^ 



JL 



TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS. 



Great soul, thou sittest with me in my 

room, 
Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes, 
On whose full orbs, with kindly lustre, lies 
The twilight warmth of ruddy ember- 
gloom : 
Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sud- 
den bloom 
Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries, 
Wrestling with the young poet's agonies, 
Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain 

doom : 
Yes! the few words which, like great 

thunder-drops, 
Thy large heart down to earth shook 

doubtfully, 
Thrilled by the inward lightning of its 

might, 
Serene and pure, like gushing joy of light, 
Shall track the eternal chords of Destiny, 
After the moon-led pulse of ocean stops. 

VI. 

Great Truths are portions of the soul of 

man ; 
Great souls are portions of Eternity ; 
Each drop of blood that e'er through true 

heart ran 
With lofty message, ran for thee and me ; 
For God'slaw, since the starry song began, 
Hath been, and still forevermore must be, 
That every deed which shall outlast Time's 

span 
Must goad the soul to be erect and free ; 
Slave is no word of deathless lineage 

sprung, — 
Too many noble souls have thought and 

died, 
Too many mighty poets lived and sung, 
And our good Saxon, from lips purified 
With martyr-fire, throughout the world 

hath rung 
Too long to have God's holy cause denied. 

VII. 

I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden 

leap 
From being's sea, like the isle-seeming 

Kraken, 
With whose great rise the ocean all is 

shaken 



SONNETS. 



21 



And a heart-tremble quivers through the 
deep ; 

Give me that growth which some per- 
chance deem sleep, 

Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems up- 
rise, 

Which, by the toil of gathering energies, 

Their upward way into clear sunshine 
keep, 

Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences, 

Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of 
green 

Into a pleasant island in the seas, 

Where, mid tall palms, the cane-roofed 
home is seen, 

And wearied men shall sit at sunset's 
hour, 

Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear 
power. 

VIII. 

TO M. W., ON HER BIRTHDAY. 

Maiden, when such a soul as thine is 

born, 
The morning-stars their ancient music 

make, 
And, Joyful, once again their song awake, 
Long silent now with melancholy scorn ; 
And thou, not mindless of so blest a 

morn, 
By no least deed its harmony shalt break, 
But shalt to that high chime thy foot- 
steps take, 
Through life's most darksome passes un- 

forlorn ; 
Therefore from thy pure faith thou shalt 

not fall, 
Therefore shalt thou be ever fair and 

free, 
And in thine every motion musical 
As summer air, majestic as the sea, 
A mystery to those who creep and crawl 
Through Time, and part it from Eternity. 



rx. 

My Love, I have no fear that thou 
shouldst die ; 

Albeit I ask no fairer life than this, 

Whose numbering-clock is still thy gen- 
tle kiss, 

While Time and Peace with hands en- 
locked fly, — 

Yet care 1 not where in Eternity 



We live and love, well knowing that 

there is 
No backward step for those who feel the 

bliss 
Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings 

high : 
Love hath so purified my being's core, 
Meseems I scarcely should be startled, 

even, 
To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone 
r before ; 

?1 Since, with thy love, this knowledge too 

was given, 
Which each calm day doth strengthen 

more and more, 
That they who love are but one step from 

Heaven. \ 



I cannot think that thou shouldst pass 

away, 
Whose life to mine is an eternal law, 
A piece of nature that can have no flaw, 
A new and certain sunrise every day ; 
But, if thou art to be another ray 
About the Sun of Life, and art to live 
Free from all of thee that was fugitive, 
The debt of Love I will more fully pay, 
Not downcast with the thought of thee 

so high, 
But rather raised to be a nobler man, 
And more divine in my humanity, 
As knowing that the waiting eyes which 

scan 
My life are lighted by a purer being, 
And ask meek, calm-browed deeds, with 

it agreeing. 



XI. 

There never yet was flower fair in vain, 
Let classic poets rhyme it as they will ; 
The seasons toil that it may blow again, 
And summer's heart doth feel its every ill ; 
Nor is a true soul ever born for naught ; 
Wherever any such hath lived and died, 
There hath been something for true free- 
dom wrought, 
Some bulwark levelled on the evil side : 
Toil on, then, Greatness ! thou art in the 

right, • 
However narrow- souls may call thee 

wrong ; 
Be as thou wouldst be in thine own clear 
sight, 



22 



EARLIER POEMS. 



And so thou shalt be in the world's ere- 
long; 

For worldlings cannot, struggle as they 
may, 

From man's great soul one great thought 
hide away. 

xn. 

SUB PONDERE CRESCIT. 

The hope of Truth grows stronger, day 
by day ; 

I hear the soul of Man around me wak- 
ing, 

Like a great sea, its frozen fetters break- 
ing, 

And flinging up to heaven its sunlit spray, 

Tossing huge continents in scornful 
play, 

And crushing them, with din of grind- 
ing thunder, 

That makes old emptinesses stare in won- 
der ; 

The memory of a glory passed away 

Lingers in every heart, as, in the shell, 

Resounds the bj^gone freedom of the sea, 

And every hour new signs of promise 
tell, 

That the great soul shall once again be 
free, 

For high, and yet more high, the mur- 
murs swell 

Of inward strife for truth and liberty. 

XIII. 

Beloved, in the noisy city here, 
The thought of thee can make all tur- 
moil cease ; 
Around my spirit, folds thy spirit clear 
Its still, soft arms, and circles it with 

peace ; 
There is no room for any doubt or fear 
In souls so overfilled with love's increase, 
There is no memory of the b} r gone year 
But growth in heart's and spirit's perfect 

ease : 
How hath our love, half nebulous at first, 
Rounded itself into a full-orbed sun ! 
How have our lives and wills (as haply 

erst 
They were, ere this forgetfulness begun) 
Through all their earthly distantness out- 
burst, 
And melted, like two rays of light in 
one ! 



XIV. 

ON READING WORDSWORTH'S SONNETS 
IN DEFENCE OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 

As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth, 
With the majestic beating of his heart, 
The mighty tides, whereof its rightful 

part 
Each sea-wide bay and little weed re- 
ceive th, — 
So, through his soul who earnestly be- 
lie veth, 
Life from the universal Heart doth flow, 
Whereby some conquest of the eternal 

Woe, 
By instinct of God's nature, he achiev- 

eth: 
A fuller pulse of this all-powerful beauty 
Into the poet's gulf-like heart doth tide, 
And he more keenly feels the glorious 

duty 
Of serving Truth, despised and cruci- 
fied, — 
Happy, unknowing sect or creed, to rest, 
And feel God flow forever through his 
breast. 

XV. 

THE SAME CONTINUED. 

Once .hardly in a cycle blossometh 

A flower-like soul ripe with the seeds of 

song, 
A spirit foreordained to cope with wrong, 
Whose divine thoughts are natural as 

breath, 
Who the old Darkness thickly scattereth 
With starry words, that shoot prevailing 

light 
Into the deeps, and wither, with the blight 
Of serene Truth, the coward heart of 

Death : 
Woe, if such spirit thwart its errand high, 
And mock with lies the longing soul of 

man! 
Yet one age longer must true Culture lie, 
Soothing her bitter fetters as she can, 
Until new messages of love outstart 
At the next beating of the infinite Heart. 

XVI. 

THE SAME .CONTINUED. 

The love of all things springs from love 

of one ; 
Wider the soul's horizon hourly grows, 



SONNETS. 



23 



And over it with fuller glory flows 
The sky-like spirit of God ; a hope begun 
In doubt and darkness 'neath a fairer sun 
Cctaeth to fruitage, if it be of Truth ; 
And to the law of meekness, faith, and 

ruth, 
By inward sympathy, shall all be won : 
This thou shouldst know, who, from the 

painted feature 
Of shifting Fashion, couldst thy brethren 

turn 
Unto the love of ever-youthful Nature, 
And of a beauty fadeless and eterne ; 
And always 't is the saddest sight to see^ 
An old man faithless in Humanity. 



xvn. 

THE SAME CONTINUED. 

A poet cannot strive for despotism ; 
His harp falls shattered ; for it still must 

be 
The instinct of great spirits to be free, 
And the sworn foes of cunning barba- 
rism : 
He who has deepest searched the wide 

abysm 
Of that life-giving Soul which men call 

fate, 
Knows that to put more faith in lies and 

hate 
Than truth and love is the true atheism : 
Upward the soul forever turns her eyes : 
The next hour always shames the hour 

before ; 
One beauty, at its highest, prophesies 
That by whose side it shall seem mean 

and poor 
No Godlike thing knows aught of less 

and less, 
But widens to the boundless Perfectness. 



XVIII. 

THE SAME CONTINUED. 

Therefore think not the Past is wise 

alone, 
For Yesterday knows nothing of the Best, 
And thou shalt love it only as the nest 
Whence glory-winged things to Heaven 

have flown : 
To the great Soul alone are all things 

known ; 
Present and future are to her as past, 



While she in glorious madness doth fore- 
cast 
That perfect bud, which seems a flower 

full-blown 
To each new Prophet, and yet always opes 
Fuller and fuller with each day and hour, 
Heartening the soul with odor of fresh 

hopes, 
And longings high, and gushings of wide 

power, 
Yet never is or shall be fully blown 
Save in the forethought of the Eternal 
One. 

XIX. 

THE SAME CONTINUED. 

Far 'yond this narrow parapet of Time, 
With eyes uplift, the poet's soul should 

look 
Into the Endless Promise, nor should 

brook 
One prying doubt to shake his faith sub- 
lime ; 
To him the earth is ever in her prime 
And dewiness of morning ; he can see 
Good lying hid, from all eternity, 
Within the teeming womb of sin and 

crime ; 
His soul should not be cramped by any bar, 
His nobleness should be so Godlike high, 
That his least deed is perfect as a star, 
His common look majestic as the sky, 
And all o'erflooded with a light from far, 
Undimmed by clouds of weak mortality. 



XX. 

TO M. O. S. 

Mary, since first I knew thee, to this 

hour, 
My love hath deepened, with my wiser 

sense 
Of what in Woman is to reverence ; 
Thy clear heart, fresh as e'er was forest- «JL. 

flower, 
Still opens more to me its beauteous 

dower ; — 
But let praise hush, — Love asks no evi- 
dence 
To prove itself well-placed ; we know not 

whence 
It gleans the straws that thatch its humble 

bower : 
We can but say we found it in the heart, 



24 



EARLIER POEMS. 



Spring of all sweetest thoughts, arch foe 

of blame, 
Sower of flowers in the dusty mart, 
Pure vestal of the poet's holy flame, — 
This is enough, and we have done our 

part 
If we but keep it spotless as it came. 



XXI. 

Our love is not a fading, earthly flower: 
Its winged seed dropped down from 

Paradise, 
And, nursed by day and night, by sun 

and shower, 
Doth momently to fresher beauty rise : 
To us the leafless autumn is not bare, 
Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty 

green. 
Our summer hearts make summer's ful- 
ness, where 
No leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen : 
For nature's life in love's deep life doth 

lie, 
Love, — whose forgetfulness is beauty's 

death, 
Whose mystic key these cells of Thou 

and I 
Into the infinite freedom openeth, 
And makes the body's dark and narrow 

grate 
The wind-flung leaves of Heaven's pal- 
ace-gate. 

XXII. 

IN ABSENCE. 

These rugged, wintry days I scarce 

could bear, 
Did I not know, that, in the early spring, 
When wild March winds upon their 

errands sing, 
-j—* Thou wouldst return, bursting on this 

still air, 
Like those same winds, when, startled 

from their lair, 
They hunt up violets, and free swift 

brooks 
From icy cares, even as thy clear looks 
Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break 

all care : 
When '"!rops with welcome rain the 

April day, 
My flowers shall find their April in thine 

eyes, 



Save there the rain in dreamy clouds 

doth stay, 
As loath to fall out of those happy skies ; 
Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to 

May, 
That comes with steady sun when April 

dies. 

XXIII. 

WENDELL rillLLirS. 

He stood upon the world's broad 

threshold ; wide 
The din of battle and of slaughter rose ; 
He saw God stand upon the weaker side, 
That sank in seeming loss before its foes : 
Many there were who made great haste 

and sold 
Unto the cunning enemy their swords, 
He scorned their gifts of fame, and 

power, and gold, 
And, underneath their soft and flowery 

words, 
Heard the cold serpent hiss ; therefore 

he went 
And humbly joined him to the weaker 

part, 
Fanatic named, and fool, vet well con- 
tent 
So he could be the nearer to God's heart, 
And feel its solemn pulses sending blood 
Through all the wide-spread veins of 

endless good. 



XXIV. 
J_ , THE STREET. 

They pass me by like shadows, crowds 

on crowds, 
Dim ghosts of men, that hover to and fro, 
Hugging their bodies round them like 

thin shrouds 
Wherein their souls were buried long ago : 
They trampled on their youth, and faith, 

and love, 
They cast their hope of human-kind away, 
With Heaven's clear messages they madly 

strove, 
And con que red, — and their spirits turned 

to clay : 
Lo ! how they wander round the world, 

their grave, 
Whose ever-gaping maw by such is fed, 
Gibbering at living men, and idly rave, 
"We, only, truly live, but ye are dead." 



S0XNET3. 



ZO 



Alas ! poor fools, the anointed eye may 

trace 
A dead soul's epitaph in every face ! 



XXV. 

I grieve not that ripe Knowledge takes 

away 
The charm that Nature to my childhood 

• wore, 
For, with that insight, cometh, day by 

day, 
A greater bliss than wonder was before ; 
The real doth not clip the poet's wings, — 
To win the secret of a weed's plain heart 
Reveals some clew to spiritual things, 
And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed 

art : 
Flowers are not flowers unto the poet's 

eyes, 
Their beauty thrills him by an inward 

sense ; 
He knows that outward seemings are but 

lies, 
Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, 

whence 
The soul that looks within for truth may 

guess 
The presence of some wondrous heaven- 

liness. 



XXVI. 

TO J. R. GIDDIXGS. 

Giddings, far rougher names than thine 

have grown 
Smoother than honey on the lips of men ; 
And thou shalt aye be honorably known, 
As one who bravely used his tongue and 

pen, 
As best befits a freeman, — even for 

those 
To whom our Law's unblushing front 

denies 
A right to plead against the lifelong 

woes 
Which are the Negro's glimpse of Free- 
dom's skies : 
Fear nothing, and hope all things, as 

the Right 
Alone may do securely ; every hour 
The thrones of Ignorance and ancient 

Night 
Lose somewhat of their long-usurped 

power, 



And Freedom's lightest word can make 

them shiver 
With a base dread that clings to them 

forever. 

XXVII. 

I thought our love at full % but 1 did err ; 
Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes ; I 

could not see 
That sorrow in our happy world must be 
Love's deepest spokesman and inter- 
preter : 
But, as a mother feels her child first stir 
Under her heart, so felt 1 instantly 
Deep in my soul another bond to thee 
Thrill with that life we saw depart from 

her ; 
mother of our angel child ! twice dear ! 
Death knits as well as parts, and still, 

I wis, 
Her tender radiance shall infold us here, 
Even as the light, borne up by inward 

bliss, 
Threads the void glooms of space with- 
out a fear. 
To print on farthest stars her pitying kiss. 

L'EXVOL 

Whether my heart hath wiser grown 

or not, 
In these three years, since I to thee in- 
scribed, 
Mine own betrothed, the firstlings of my 

muse, — 
Poor windfalls of unripe experience, 
Young buds plucked hastily by childish 

hands 
Not patient to await more full-blown 

flowers, — 
At least it hath seen more of life and 

men, 
And pondered more, and grown a shade 

more sad ; 
Yet with no loss of hope or settled trust 
Tn the benignness of that Providence 
Which shapes from out our elements 

awry 
The grace and order that we wonder at, 
The mystic harmony of right and wrong, 
Both working out His wisdom and our 

good : 
A trust, Beloved, chiefly learned of thee, 
Who hast that gift of patient tenderness, 
(The instinctive wisdom of a woman's 

heart?) 



26 



EARLIER POEMS. 



They tell us that our land was made for 

song, 
With its huge rivers and sky-piercing 

peaks, 
Its sealike lakes and mighty cataracts, 
Its forests vast and hoar, and prairies 

wide, 
And mounds that tell of wondrous tribes 
/ extinct. 

\But Poesy springs not from rocks and 

woods ; 
Her womb and cradle are the human 

heart, 
And she can find a nobler theme for song 
In the most loathsome man that blasts 

the sight 
Than in the broad expanse of sea and 

shore 
Between the frozen deserts of the poles.^ 
All nations have their message from on 

high, i 
Eachthemessiahof some central thought, 
For the fulfilment and delight of Man : 
One has to teach that labor is divine ; 
Another Freedom ; and another Mind ; 
And all, that God is open-eyed and just, 
The happy centre and calm heart of all. 

Are, then, our woods, our mountains, 

and our streams, 
Needful to teach our poets how to sing? 
maiden rare, far other thoughts were 

ours, 
When we have sat by ocean's foaming 

marge, 
And watched the waves leap roaring on 

the rocks, 
Than young Leander and his Hero had, 
Gazing from Sestos to the other shore. 
iJThe moon looks down and ocean worships 

her, 
Stars rise and set, and seasons come and go 
Even as they did in Homer's eider time, 
But we behold them not with Grecian 

eyes : 
Then they were types of beauty and of 

strength,- 
But now of freedom, unconfmed and pure, 
Subject alone to Order's higher law. 
What cares the Russian serf or Southern 

slave 
Though we should speak as man spake 

never yet 
Of gleaming Hudson's broad magnifi- 
cence, V 
Or green Niagara's never-ending roar ? i 
(Our country hath a gospel of her own 



To preach and practise before all the 

world, — 
The freedom and divinity of man,"*) 
The glorious claims of human brother- 
hood, — 
Which to pay nobly, as a freeman should, 
Gains the sole wealth that will not fly 

away, — 
And the soul's fealty to none but God. 
These are realities, which make the 

shows 
Of outward Nature, be they ne'er so 

grand, 
Seem small, and worthless, and contempt- 
ible. 
These are the mountain-summits for our 

bards, 
Which stretch far upward into heaven 

itself, 
And give such wide-spread and exulting 

view 
Of hope, and faith, and onward destiny, 
That shrunk Parnassus to a molehill 

dwindles. 
\Our new Atlantis, like a morning-star, 
Silvers the murk face of slow-yielding 

Night, 
The herald of a fuller truth than yet 
Hath gleamed upon the upraised face of 

Man 
Since the earth glittered in her stainless 

prime, — 
Of a more glorious sunrise than of old 
Drew wondrous melodies from Memnon 

huge, 
Yea, draws them still, though now he sit 

waist-deep 
In the ingulfing flood of whirling sand, 
And looks across the wastes of endless 

gray, 
Sole wreck, where once his hundred-gated 

Thebes 
Pained with her mighty hum the calm, 

blue heaven : ) 
Shall the dull stone pay grateful orisons, 
And we till noonday bar the splendor 

out, 
Lest it reproach and chide our sluggard 

hearts, 
Warm -nestled in the down of Prejudice, 
And be content, though clad with angel- 
wings, 
Close-clipped, to hop about from perch 

to perch, 
In paltry cages of dead men's dead 

thoughts ? 
0, rather, like the skylark, soar and sing, 



A LEGEND OF BRITTANY. 



27 



And let our gushing songs befit the dawn 
And sunrise, and the yet unshaken dew 
Brimming the chalice of each full-blown 

hope, 
"Whose blithe front turns to greet the 

growing day ! 
Never had poets such high call before, 
Never can poets hope for higher one, 
And, if they be but faithful to their trust, 
Earth will remember them with love and 

joy, 

And 0, far better, God will not forget. 

For he who settles Freedom's principles 

Writes the death-warrant of all tyranny ; 

(Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to 

the heart,*) 
And his mere word makes despots tremble 

more 
Than ever Brutus with his dagger could. 
Wait for no hints from waterfalls or 

woods, 
Nor dream that tales of red men, brute 

and fierce, 
Repay the finding of this Western World, 
Or needed half the globe to give them 

birth: 
Spirit supreme of Freedom ! not for this 
Did great Columbus tame his eagle soul 
To jostle with the daws that perch in 

courts ; 
Not for this, friendless, on an unknown 

sea, 
Coping with mad waves and more muti- 
nous spirits, 
Battled he with the dreadful ache at 

heart 
WTiich tempts, with devilish subtleties 

of doubt, 
The hermit of that loneliest solitude, 
The silent desert of a great New Thought ; 



V Though loud Niagara were to-day struck 

dumb, 
Yet would this cataract of boiling life 
Rush plunging on and on to endless 

deeps, 
And utter thunder till the world shall 

cease, — 
A thunder worthy of the poet's song, v 
And which alone can fill it with true life. J 
The high evangel to our country granted 
Could make apostles, yea, with tongues 

of fire, 
Of hearts half-darkened back again to 
f clay ! 

t'T is the soul only that is national, 
And he who pays true loyalty to that 
Alone can claim the wreath of patriotism, j 

i Beloved ! if I wander far and oft 
From that which I believe, and feel, and 

know, 
Thou wilt forgive, not with a sorrowing 

heart, 
But with a strengthened hope of better i 

things ; "■{"- 

Knowing that I, though often blind and 

false 
To those I love, and 0, more false than 

all 
Unto myself, have been most true to thee, 
And that whoso in one thing hath been 

true 
Can be as true in all. Therefore thy hope 
May yet not prove unfruitful, and thy love 
Meet, day by day, with less unworthy 

thanks, 
Whether, as now, we journey hand in 

hand, 
Or, parted in the body, yet are one 
In spirit and the love of holy things, j 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



A LEGEND OF BRITTANY. 

• PART FIRST. 

I. 
Fair as a summer dream was Margaret, — 
Such dream as in a poet's soul might 
start, 
Musing of old loves while the moon doth 
set : 



Her hair was not more sunny than her 
heart, 
Though like a natural golden coro- 
net 
It circled her dear head with careless 
art, 
Mocking the sunshine, that would fain 

have lent 
To its frank grace a richer ornament. 



28 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



II. 

His loved one's eyes could poet ever 
speak, 
So kind, so dewy, and so deep were 
hers, — 
But, w 7 hile he strives, the choicest phrase, 
too weak, 
Their glad reflection in his spirit blurs ; 
As one may see a dream dissolve and 
break 
Out of his grasp when he to tell it stirs, 
Like that sad Dryad doomed no more to 

bless 
The mortal who revealed her loveliness. 

in. 

^She dwelt forever in a region bright, 
Peopled with living fancies of her own,! 
Where naught could come but visions of 
delight, 
Far, far aloof from earth's eternal moan : 
A summer cloud thrilled through with 
rosy light, 
Floating beneath the blue sky all alone, 
( Her spirit wandered by itself, and won 
A golden edge from some unsetting sun.) 

IV. 

| The heart grows richer that its lot is 
poor, — 
God blesses want with larger sympa- 
thies, — 
Love enters giadliest at the humble door, 
And makes the cot a palace with his 
eyes ; — ") 
So Margaret's heart a softer beauty wore, 
And grew in gentleness and patience 
wise, 
For she was but a simple herdsman's 

child, 
A lily chance-sown in the rugged wild. 



There was no beauty of the wood or field 
But she its fragrant bosom-secret knew, 
Nor any but to her would freely yield 
Some grace that in her soul took root 
and grew : 
Nature to her glowed ever new-revealed, 
All rosy-fresh with innocent morning 
dew, 
And looked into her heart with dim, sweet 

eyes 
That left it full of sylvan memories. 



VI. 

0, what a face was hers to brighten light, 
And give back sunshine with an added 
glow, 
To wile each moment with a fresh de- 
light, 
And part of memory's best content- 
ment grow ! 
0, how her voice, as with an inmate's 
right, 
Into the strangest heart would welcome 
go, 
And make it sweet, and ready to become 
Of white and gracious thoughts the cho- 
sen home ! ) 

VII. 

None looked upon her but he straight- 
way thought 
Of all the greenest depths of country 
cheer, 
And into each one's heart was freshly 
brought 
What was to him the sweetest time of 
year, 
So was her every look and motion fraught 
With out-of-door delights and forest 
r lere ; 

I Not the first violet on a woodland lea 
Seemed a more visible gift of Spring than 
she. 

VIII. 

Is love learned only out of poets' books ? 
Is there not somewhat in the dropping 
flood, 
And in the nunneries of silent nooks, 
And in the murmured longing of the 
wood, 
That could make Margaret dream of love- 
lorn looks, 
And stir a thrilling mystery in* her 
blood 
More trembly secret than Aurora's tear 
Shed in the bosom of an eglatere ? 

IX. 

Full many a sweet forewarning hath the 
mind, 
Full many a whispering of vague desire, 
Ere comes the nature destined to unbind 
Its virgin zone, and all its deeps in- 
spire, — 
Low stirrings in the leaves, before the 
wind 
Wake all the green strings of the for- 
est lyre, 



A LEGEND OF BRITTANY. 



29 



Faint heatings in the calyx, ere the rose 
Its warm voluptuous breast doth all un- 
close. \ 

x. 

{Long in its dim recesses pines the spirit, 

Wilderedand dark, despairingly alone ; 

Though many a shape of beauty wander 

near it, 

And many a wild and half-remembered 

tone 

Tremble from the divine abyss to cheer it, 

Yet still it knows that there is only one 

Before whom it can kneel and tribute 

bring, 
At once a happy vassal and a king.N 



To feel a want, yet scarce know what it 
is, 
To seek one nature that is always new, 
Whose glance is warmer than another's 
kiss, 
Whom we can bear our inmost beauty 
to, 
Nor feel deserted afterwards, — for this 
But with our destined co-mate we can 
do, — 
Such longing instinct fills the mighty 

scope 
Of the young soul with one mysterious 
hope. 

XII. 

So Margaret's heart grew brimming with 
the lore 
Of love's enticing secrets; and although 
She had found none to cast it down be- 
fore, 
Yet oft to Fancy's chapel she would go 
To pay her vows, and count the rosary 
o'er 
Of her love's promised graces : — haply 
so 
Miranda's hope had pictured Ferdinand 
Long ere the gaunt wave tossed him on 
the strand. 



A new-made star that swims the lonely 
gloom, 
Unwedded yet and longing for the sun, 
Whose beams, the bride-gifts of the lav- 
ish groom, 
Blithely to crown the virgin planet 
run, 
Her being was, watching to see the bloom 



Of love's fresh sunrise roofing one by 
one 
Its clouds with gold, a triumph- arch to be 
For him who came to hold her heart in 
fee. 



Not far from Margaret's cottage dwelt a 

knight 
Of the proud Templars, a sworn celi- 
bate, 
Whose heart in secret fed upon the light 
And dew of her ripe beauty, through 

the grate 
Of his close vow catching what gleams 

he might 
Of the free heaven, and cursing all too 

late 
The cruel faith whose black walls hemmed 

him in 
And turned life's crowning bliss to deadly 

sin. 



For he had met her in the wood by chance, 
And, having drunk her beauty's wil- 
dering spell, 
His heart shook like the pennon of a lance , 

That quivers in a breeze's sudden swell, 
And thenceforth, in a close-infolded 
trance, 
From mistily golden deep to deep he 
fell; 
Till earth did waver and fade far away 
Beneath the hope in whose warm arms 
he lay. 

XVI. 

A dark, proud man he was, whose half- 
blown youth 
Had shed its blossoms even in opening, 
Leaving a few that with more winning 
ruth 
Trembling around grave manhood's 
stem might cling, 
More sad than cheery, making, in good 
sooth, 
Like the fringed gentian, a late autumn 
spring: — 
\A twilight nature, braided light and 

gloom, 
A youth half-smiling by an open tomb.^ 



Fair as an angel, who yet inly wore 
A wrinkled heart foreboding his near 
fall; 



MA. 



30 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Who saw him alway wished to know him 

more, 
As if he were some fate's defiant thrall 
And nursed a dreaded secret at his core ; 
Little he loved, but power the most of 

all, 
And that he seemed to scorn, as one who 

knew 
By what foul paths men choose to crawl 

thereto. 

XVIII. 

He had been noble, but some great de- 
ceit 
Had turned his better instinct to a 

vice : 
He strove to think the world was all a 

cheat, 
That power and fame were cheap at 

any price, 
That the sure way of being shortly great 
Was even to play life's game with 

loaded dice, 
Since he had tried the honest play and 

found 
That vice and virtue differed but in 

sound. 



Yet Margaret's sight redeemed him for a 
space 
From his own thraldom ; man could 
never be 
A hypocrite when first such maiden grace 

Smiled in upon his heart ; the agony 
Of wearing all day long a lying face 
Fell lightly from him, and, a moment 
free, 
Erect with wakened faith his spirit stood 
And scorned the weakness of his demon- 
mood. 



f 



Like a sweet wind-harp to him was her 
thought, 
Which would not let the common air 
come near, 
Till from its dim enchantment it had 
caught 
A musical tenderness that brimmed his 
ear 
With sweetness more ethereal than aught 
Save silver-dropping snatches that 
whilere 
Kained down from some sad angel's 

faithful harp 
To cool her fallen lover's anguish sharp.) 



'Deep in the forest was a little dell 

High overarched with the leafy sweep 
Of a broad oak, through whose gnarled 
roots there fell 
A slender rill that sung itself asleep, 
Where its continuous toil had scooped a 
well 
To please the fairy folk ; breathlessly 
deep 
The stillness was, save when the dream- 
ing brook 
From its small urn a drizzly murium 
shook. 1 

XXII. 

The wooded hills sloped upward all 
around 
With gradual rise, and made an even 
rim, 
So that it seemed a mighty casque un- 
bound 
From some huge Titan's brow to 
lighten him, 
Ages ago, and left upon the ground, 
Where the slow soil had mossed it to 
the brim, 
Till after countless centuries it grew 
Into this dell, the haunt of noontide dew. 

XXIII. 

Dim vistas, sprinkled o'er with sun- 
flecked green, 
Wound through the thickset trunks 
on every side, 
And, toward the west, in fancy might be 
seen 
A gothic window in its blazing pride, 
When the low sun, two arching elms 
between, 
Lit up the leaves beyond, which, 
autumn -dyed 
With lavish hues, would into splendor 

start, 
Shaming the labored panes of richest art. 



Here, leaning once against the old oak's 
trunk, 
Mordred, for such was the young 

m -i > 

Templar s name, 
Saw Margaret come ; unseen, the falcon 

shrunk 
From the meek dove ; sharp thrills of 

tingling flame 
Made him forget that he was vowed a 

monk, 



A LEGEND OF BRITTANY. 



31 



And all the outworks of his pride o'er- 

came : 
Flooded he seemed with bright delicious 

pain, 
As if a star had burst within his brain. 

XXV. 

Such power hath beauty and frank inno- 
cence : 
A flower bloomed forth, that sunshine 
glad to bless, 

Even from his love's long leafless stem ; 
the sense 
Of exile from Hope's happy realm grew 
less, 

And thoughts of childish peace, he knew 
not whence, 
Thronged round his heart with many 
an old caress, 

Melting the frost there into pearly 
dew 

That mirrored back his nature's morning- 
blue. 

XXVI. 

( She turned and saw him, but she felt no 
dread, 
Her purity, like adamantine mail, 
Did so encircle her ; and yet her head 
She drooped, and made her golden hair 
her veil, 
Through which a glow of rosiest lustre 
spread, 
Then faded, and anon she stood all 
pale, 
As snow o'er which a blush of northern- 
light 
Suddenly reddens, and as soon grows 
white.) 

XXVII. 

( She thought of Tristrem and of Lanci- 
lot, 
Of all her dreams, and of kind fai- 
ries' might, 
And how that dell was deemed a haunted 
spot, 
Until there grew a mist before her 
sight, 
And where the present was she half 
forgot, 
Borne backward through the realms of 
old delight, — 
Then, starting up awake, she would have 

gone, 
Yet almost wished it might not be 
alone.^ 



How they went home together through 

the wood, 
And how all life seemed focussed into 

one 
Thought-dazzling spot that set ablaze 

the blood, * 
What need to tell ? l^Fit language there 

is none 
For the heart's deepest things. Who 

ever wooed 
As in his boyish hope he would have 

done ? 
For, when the soul is fullest, the hushed 

tongue 
Voicelessly trembles like a lute unstrung.; 

XXIX. 

But all things carry the heart's messages 
And know it not, nor doth the heart 

well know, 
But nature hath her will ; even as the 

bees, 
Blithe go-betweens, fly singing to and 

fro 
With the fruit-quickening pollen ; — 

hard if these 
Found not some all unthought-of way 

to show 
Their secret each to each ; and so they 

did, 
And one heart's flower-dust into the other 

slid. 

XXX. 

(Young hearts are free ; the selfish world 

it is 
That turns them miserly and cold as 

stone, 
And makes them clutch their fingers on 

the bliss 
Which but in giving truly is their 

own ; — 
She had no dreams of barter, asked not 

his, 
But gave hers freely as she would have 

thrown 
A rose to him, or as that rose gives forth 
Its generous fragrance, thoughtless of its 

worth. ) 

XXXI. 

Her summer nature felt a need to bless, 
And a like longing to be blest again ; 

So. from her sky-like spirit, gentleness 
Dropt ever like a sunlit fall of rain, 

And his beneath drank in the bright 
caress 



32 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



f. 



( 



As thirstily *s would a parched plain, 
That long hath watched the showers of 

sloping gray 
For ever, ever, falling far away. 



How should he dream of ill ? the heart 
filled quite 
With sunshine, like the shepherd's- 
clock at noon, 
Closes its leaves around its warm delight ; 
Whate'er in life is harsh or out of tune 
Is all shut out, no boding shade of light 
Can pierce the opiate ether of its 
swoon : 
Love is but blind as thoughtful justice is, 
But naught can be so wanton-blind as 
bliss."] 

XXXIII. 

All beauty and all life he was to her ; 
She questioned not his love, she only 
knew 
That she loved him, and not a pulse 
could stir 
In her whole frame but quivered 
through and through 
With this glad thought, and was a min- 
ister 
To do him fealty and service true, 
Like golden ripples hasting to the land 
To wreck their freight of sunshine on the 
strand, j 

xxxiv. 
dewy dawn of love ! hopes that are 
Hung high, like the cliff-swallow's 
perilous nest, 
Mostlike to fall when fullest, and that jar 
AVith every heavier billow ! unrest 
Than balmiest deeps of quiet sweeter far I] 
How did ye triumph now in Marga- 
ret's breast, 
Making it readier to shrink and start 
Than quivering gold of the pond-lily's 
heart ! 

XXXY. 

Here let us pause : [0, would the soul 
might ever 
Achieve its immortality in youth, 
When nothing yet hath damped its high 
endeavor 
After the starry energy of truth ! J 
Here let us pause, and for a moment sever 
This gleam of sunshine from the days 
unruth 
That sometime come to all, for it is good 
To lengthen to the last a sunny mood. 



PART SECOND. 



As one who, from the sunshine and the 
green, 
Enters the solid darkness of a cave, 
ISTor knows what precipice or pit unseen 
May yawn before him with its sudden 
" grave, 
And, with hushed breath, doth often for- 
ward lean, 
Dreaming he hears the plashing of a 
wave 
Dimly below, or feels a damper air 
From out some dreary chasm, he knows 
not where ; — 

II. 
So, from the sunshine and the green of 
love, 
We enter on our story's darker part ; 
And, though the horror of it weli may 
move 
An impulse of repugnance in the heart, 
, Yet let us think, that, as there 's naught 
above 
The all-embracing atmosphere of Art, 
So also there is naught that falls below ■ 
Her generous reach, though grimed with 
guilt and woe. 

in. 
Her fittest triumph is to show that good 

Lurks in the heart of evil evermore, 
That love, though scorned, and outcast, 
and withstood, 
Can without end forgive, and yet have 
store ; 
God's love and man's are of the selfsame 
blood, 
And He can see that always at the door 
Of foulest hearts the angel-nature yet 
Knocks to return and cancel all its debt, j 



It ever is weak falsehood's destiny 
That her thick mask turns crystal to 
let through 
The unsuspicious eyes of honesty ; 
But Margaret's heart was too sincere 
and true 
Aught but plain truth and faithfulness 
to see, 
And Mordred's for a time a little grew 
To be like hers, won by the mild reproof 
Of those kind eyes that kept all doubt 
aloof. 



A LEGEND OF BRITTANY. 



33 



( Full oft they met, as dawn and twilight 
meet 
In northern climes ; she full of grow- 
ing day 
As he of darkness, which before her feet 
Shrank gradual, and faded quite away, 
Soon to return; for power had made 
love sweet 
To him, and, when his will had gained 
full sway, 
The taste began to pall ; for never power 
Can sate the hungry soul beyond an hour. 



He fell as doth the tempter ever fall, 

Even in the gaining of his loathsome 
/ end ; 

\_God doth not work as man works, but 
makes all 
The crooked paths of ill to goodness 
tend ;^ 
Let him judge Margaret ! If to be the 
thrall 
Of love, and faith too generous to 
defend 
Its very life from him she loved, be sin, 
What hope of grace may the seducer 
win ? 

VII. 

Grim-hearted world, that look'st with 
Levite eyes 
On those poor fallen by too much 
faith in man, 
She that upon thy freezing threshold lies, 
Starved to more sinning by thy sav- 
age ban, 
Seeking that refuge because foulest vice 
More godlike than thy virtue is, whose 
span 
Shuts out the wretched only, is more 

free 
To enter Heaven than thou wilt ever be ! 



Thou wilt not let her wash thy daintv 
feet 
"With such salt things as tears, or with 
rude hair 
Dry them, soft Pharisee, that sit'st at 
meat 
"With him who made her such, and 
speak' st him fair, 
Leaving God's wandering lamb the while 
to bleat 
Unheeded, shivering in the pitiless air : 
3 



Thou hast made prisoned virtue show 

more wan 
And haggard than a vice to look upon. 

IX. 

Xow many months flew by, and weary 
grew 
To Margaret the sight of happy things* 
Blight fell on all her flowers, instead of 
dew; 
Shut round her heart were now the 
joyous wings 
Wherewith it wont to soar; yet not un- 
true, 
Though tempted much, her woman's 
nature clings 
To its first pure belief, and with sad 

eyes 
Looks backward o'er the gate of Paradise. 



And so, though altered Mordred came 

less oft, 
And winter frowned where spring had 

laughed before, 
In his strange eyes, yet half her sadness 

doffed, 
And in her silent patience loved him 

more : 
Sorrow had made her soft heart yet more 

soft, 
And a new life within her own she 

bore 
Which made her tenderer, as she felt it 

move 
Beneath her breast, a refuge for her love. 

XI. 

This babe, she thought, would surely 
bring him back, 
And be a bond forever them betwreen; 
Before its eyes the sullen tempest-rack 

Would fade, and leave the face of 
, heaven serene ; 

(And love's return doth more than fill 
the lack, 
Which in his absence withered the 
heart's green :\ 
And yet a dim foretoding still would 

flit 
Between her and her hope to darken it. 

XII. 

She could not figure forth a happy fate, 
Even for this life from heaven so newly 
come ; 



34 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



The earth must needs be doubly desolate 
To him scarce parted from a fairer 

home : 
Such boding heavier on her bosom sate 
One night, as, standing in the twilight 

gloam, 
She ^trained her eyes beyond that dizzy 

verge 
kt whose foot faintly breaks the future's 

surge. 



Poor little spirit ! naught but shame and 
woe 
Nurse the sick heart whose lifeblood 
nurses thine : 
Yet not those only ; love hath triumphed 
so, 
As for thy sake makes sorrow more 
divine : 
{And yet, though thou be pure, the world 
is foe 
To purity, if born in such a shrine ; 
And, having trampled it for struggling 

thence, 
Smiles to itself, and calls it Providence.) 

xiv. 

As thus she mused, a shadow seemed to 
rise 
From out her thought, and turn to 
dreariness 
All blissful hopes and sunny memories, 
And the quick blood would curdle up 
and press 
About her heart, which seemed to shut 
its eyes 
And hush itself, as who with shudder- 
ing guess 
Harks through the gloom and dreads e'en 

now to feel 
Through his hot breast the icy slide of 
steel. 

xv. 

But, at that heart-beat, while in dread 
she was, 
In the low wind the honeysuckles 
gleam, 
A dewy thrill flits through the heavy 
grass, 
And, looking forth, she saw, as in a 
dream, 
Within the wood the moonlight's shad- 
owy mass : 
Night's starry heart yearning to hers 
doth seem, 



And the deep sky, full-hearted with the 

moon, 
Folds round her all the happiness of June. 

XVI. 

What fear could face a heaven and earth 
like this ? 
What silveriest cloud could hang'neath 
such a sky ? 
A tide of wondrous and unwonted bliss 
Rolls back through all her pulses sud- 
denly, 
As if some seraph, who had learned to 
kiss 
From the fair daughters of the worl i 
gone by, 
Had wedded so his fallen light with hers 
Such sweet, strange joy through soul ai 
body stirs. 

XVII. 

Now seek we Mordred : he who did not 
fear 
The crime, yet fears the latent conse- 
quence : 
If it should reach a brother Templar's ear, 
It haply might be made a good pretence 
To cheat him of the hope he held most 
dear ; 
For he had spared no thought's or 
deed's expense, 
That by and by might help his wish to 

clip 
Its darling bride, — the high grandmas- 
tership. m 

XVIII. 

The apathy, ere a crime resolved is done, 
Is scarce less dreadful than remorse 
for crime ; 
By no allurement can the soul be won 
From brooding o'er the weary creep of 
time : 
Mordred stole forth into the happy sun, 
Striving to hum a scrap "of Breton 
rhyme, 
But the sky struck him speechless, and 

he tried 
In vain to summon up his callous pride. 

XIX. 

In the courtyard a fountain leaped alway, 

A Triton blowing jewels through his 

shell 

Into the sunshine ; Mordred turned away, 

Weary because the stone face did not 

tell 



A LEGEND OF BRITTANY. 



35 



Of weariness, nor could he bear to-day, 
Heartsick, to hear the patient sink 
and swell 
Of winds among the leaves, or golden bees 
Drowsily humming in the orange-trees. 



All happy sights and sounds now came 
to him 
Like a reproach : he wandered far and 
wide, 
Following the lead of his unquiet whim, 
But still there went a something at his 
side 
T3i.at made the cool breeze hot, the sun- 
shine dim ; 
fit would not flee, it could not be defied, 
could not see it, but he felt it there, 
J y the damp chill that crept among his 
hair. 

XXI. 

Day wore at last ; the evening-star arose, 
And throbbing in the sky grew red and 
set ; 
Then with a guilty, wavering step he goes 
To the hid nook where they so oft had 
met 
In happier season, for his heart well 
knows 
That he is sure to find poor Margaret 
Watching and waiting there with love- 
lorn breast 
Around her young dream's rudely scat- 
tered nest. 



Why follow here that grim old chronicle 
Which counts the dagger-strokes and 
drops of blood ? 
Enough that Margaret by his mad steel 
fell, 
Unmoved by murder from her trusting 
mood, 
Smiling on him as Heaven smiles on Hell, 
With a sad love, remembering when 
he stood 
Not fallen yet, the unsealer of her heart, 
Of all her holy dreams the holiest part. 

XXIII. 

His crime complete, scarce knowing what 
he did, 
(So goes the tale,) beneath the altar 
there 
In the high church the stiffening corpse 
he hid, 
And then, to'scape that suffocating air, 



Like a scared ghouJ out of the porch he 
slid; 
But his strained eyes saw blood-spots 
everywhere, 

And ghastly faces thrust themselves be- 
tween 

His soul and hopes of peace with blasting 
mien. 

xxiv. 

His heart went out within Lim like a 

spark 
Dropt in the sea; wherever he made 

bold 
To turn his eyes, he saw, all stiff and 

stark, 
Pale Margaret lying dead ; the lavish 

gold '' 
Of her loose hair seemed in the cloudy 

dark 
To spread a glory, and a thousand-fold 
More strangely pale and beautiful she 

grew : 
JEer silence stabbed his conscience 

through and through:) 



Or visions of past days, — a mother's eyes 
That smiled down on the fair boy at 
her knee, 
Whose happy upturned face to hers re- 
plies, — 
He saw sometimes : or Margaret mourn- 
fully 
Gazed on him full of doubt, as one who 
tries 
To crush belief that does love injury ; 
Then she would wring her hands, but 

soon again 
Love's patience glimmered out through 
cloudy pain. 

XXVI. 

Meanwhile he dared not go and steal away 
The silent, dead-cold witness of his sin ; 
He had not feared the life, but that dull 
clay, 
Those open eyes that showed the death 
within, 
Would surely stare him mad ; yet all the 
day 
A dreadful impulse, whence his will 
could win 
No refuge, made him linger in the aisle, 
Freezing with his wan look each greeting 
smile. 



36 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Now, on the second day there was to be 

A festival in church : from far and near 

Came flocking in the sunburnt peasantry, 

And knights and dames with stately 

antique cheer, 

Blazing with pomp, as if all faerie 

Had emptied her quaint halls, or, as 
it were, 
The illuminated marge of some old book, 
While we were gazing, life and motion 
took. 



When all were entered, and the roving 
eyes 
Of all were stayed, some upon faces 
bright, 
Some on the priests, some on the traceries 
That decked the slumber of a marble 
knight, 
And all the rustlings over that arise 

From recognizing tokens of delight, 
When friendly glances meet, — then si- 
lent ease 
Spread o'er the multitude by slow de- 
grees. 

XXIX. 

Then swelled the organ : up through 

choir and nave 
The music trembled with an inward 

thrill 
Of bliss at its own grandeur : wave on 

wave 
Its flood of mellow thunder rose, un- 
til 
The hushed air shivered with the throb 

it gave, 
Then, poising for a moment, it stood 

still, 
And sank and rose again, to burst in 

spray 
That wandered into silence far away. 



( Like to a mighty heart the music seemed, 
That yearns with melodies it cannot 
speak, 
Until, in grand despair of what it 
dreamed, 
In the agony of effort it doth break, 
Yet triumphs breaking ; )on it rushed and 
streamed 
And wantoned in its might, as when 
a lake, 



Long pent among the mountains, bursts 

its walls 
And in one crowding gush leaps forth 

and falls. 

I XXXI. 

Deeper and deeper shudders shook the 
air, 
As the huge bass kept gathering heav- 

Like thunder when it rouses in its lair, 
And with its hoarse growl shakes the 
low-hung sky, 
It grew up like a darkness everywhere^ 
Filling the vast cathedral ; — suddenly, 
From the dense mass a boy's clear treble 

broke 
Like lightning, and the full-toned choir 
awoke. 

i XXXII. 

Through gorgeous windows shone the 

sun aslant, 
Brimming the church with gold am 

purple mist, 
Meet atmosphere to bosom that rich 



Whe: 



voices in one strand did 



Their vanec ed tones, and left no want 
To the delighted soul, which sank 
abyssed 

In the warm music cloud, while, far be- 
low, 

The organ heaved its surges to and fro. 

XXXIII. 

As if a lark should suddenly drop dead 
While the blue air yet trembled with 
its song, 
So snapped at once that music's golden 
thread, 
Struck by a nameless fear that leapt 
along 
From heart to heart, and like a shadow 
spread 
With instantaneous shiver through the 
throng, 
So that some glanced behind, as half 

aware % 

A hideous shape of dread were standing 
there. 

xxxiv. 

As when a crowd of pale men gather 
round, 
Watching an eddy in the leaden deep, 



A LEGEND OF BRITTANY. 



37 



From which they deem the body of one 
drowned 
Will be cast forth, from face to face 
doth creep 

An eager dread that holds all tongues 
fast bound 
Until the horror, with a ghastly leap, 

Starts up, its dead blue arms stretched 
aimlessly, 

Heaved with the swinging of the care- 
less sea, — 



uo in the faces of all these there grew, 
As by one impulse, a dark, freezing 
awe, 
Which, with a fearful fascination drew 
All eyes toward the altar ; damp and 
raw 
The air grew suddenly, and no man knew 
Whether perchance his silent neighbor 
saw 
:-The dreadful thing which all were sure 

would rise 
To scare the strained lids wider from 
their eyes. 



The incense trembled as -^upward sent 
Its slow, uncertain thread of wander- 
ing blue, 
As 't were the only living element 

In all the church, so deep the stillness 
grew ; 
It seemed one might have heard it, as it 
went, 
Give out an audible rustle, curling 
through 
The midnight silence of that awe-struck 

air, 
More hushed than death, though so 
much life was there. 



Nothing they saw, but a low voice was 
heard 
Threading the ominous silence of that 
fear, 
Gentle and terrorless as if a bird, 

Wakened by some volcano's glare, 
should cheer 
The murk air with his song ; yet every 
word 
In the cathedral's farthest arch seemed 
near, 



As if it spoke to every one apart, 
Like the clear voice of conscience in each 
heart. 

XXXVIII. 

" Rest, to weary hearts thou art most 
dear ! 
Silence, after life's bewildering din, 
Thou art most welcome, whether in the 
sear 
Days of our age thou comest, or we 
win 
Thy poppy-wreath in youth ! then where- 
fore here * 
Linger I yet, once free to enter in 
At that wished gate which gentle Death 

doth ope, 
Into the boundless realm of strength and 
hope ? 

XXXIX. 

I ' ' Think not in death my love could evei 
cease ; 
If thou wast false, more need there is 
for me 
Still to be true; that slumber were not 
peace, 
If 't were unvisited with dreams of 
thee : } 
And thou hadst never heard such words 
as these, 
Save that in heaven I must forever be 
Most comfortless and wretched, seeing 

this 
Our unbaptized babe shut out from bliss. 

XL. 

" This little spirit with imploring eyes 
Wanders alone the dreary wild of 
space ; 
The shadow of his pain forever lies 
Upon my soul in this new dwelling- 
place ; 
His loneliness makes me in Paradise 

More lonely, and, unless I see his face, 
Even here for grief could I lie down and 

die, 
Save for my curse of immortality. 

XLI. 

"World after world he sees around him 
swim 
Crowded with happy souls, that take 
no heed 
Of the sad eyes that from the night's 
faint rim 
Gaze sick with longing on them as 
they speed 



38 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



With golden gates, that only shut out 

him; 
And shapes sometimes from Hell's 

abysses freed 
Flap darkly by him, with enormous 

sweep 
Of wings that roughen wide the pitchy 

deep. 

XLII. 

"I am a mother, — spirits do not shake 
This much of earth from them, — and 
I must pine 
Till I can feel his little hands, and take 
His weary head upon this heart of 
mine; 
And, might it be, full gladly for his 



Would I this solitude of bliss resign, 
And be shut out of Heaven to dwell with 

him 
Forever in that silence drear and dim. 

XLIII. 

"I strove to hush my soul, and would 

not speak 
At first, for thy dear sake ; a woman's 

love 
Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak, 
And by its weakness overcomes; I 

strove 
To smother bitter thoughts with patience 

meek, 
But still in the abyss my soul would 

rove, - 
Seeking my child, and drove me here to 

claim 
The rite that gives him peace in Christ's 

dear name. 

XLIV. 

"I sit and weep while blessed spirits 

sing ; 
I can but long and pine the while they 

praise, 
And, leaning o'er the wall of Heaven, I 

fling 
My voice to where I deem my infant 

strays, 
Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to 

bring 
Her nestlings back beneath her wings' 

embrace ; 
But still he answers not, and I but know 
That Heaven and earth are both alike in 

woe. " 



Then the pale priests, with ceremony due, 
Baptized the child within its dreadful 
tomb 

Beneath that mother's heart, whose in- 
stinct true 
Star-like had battled down the triple 
gloom 

Of sorrow, love, and death : young maid- 
ens, too, 
Strewed the pale corpse with many a 
milkwhite bloom, 

And parted the bright hair, and on the 
breast 

Crossed the unconscious hands in sign 
of rest. 

XLVI. 

Some said, that, when the priest had 
sprinkled o'er 
The consecrated drops, they seemed to 
hear 
A sigh, as of some heart from travail 
sore 
Released, and then two voices singing 
clear, 
Misereatur Deus, more and more 

Fading far upward, and their ghastly 
fear 
Fell from them with that sound, as 

bodies fall 
From souls upspringing to celestial hall. 



PROMETHEUS. 

One after one the stars have risen and 

set, 
Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on my 

chain : 
The Bear, that prowled all night about the 

fold 
Of the North-star, hath shrunk into his 

den, 
Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the 

Dawn, 
Whose blushing smile floods all the 

Orient ; 
And now bright Lucifer grows less and 

less, 
Into the heaven's blue quiet deep-with- 
drawn. 
Sunless and starless all, the desert sky 
Arches above me, empty as this heart 
For ages hath been empty of all joy, 
Except to brood upon its silent hope, 
As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now. 



PROMETHEUS. 



39 



All night have I heard voices : deeper yet 
The deep low breathing of the silence 

grew, 
While all about, muffled in awe, there 

stood 
Shadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at 

heart, 
But, when I turned to front them, far 

along 
Only a shudder through the midnight ran, 
And the dense stillness walled me closer 

round. 
But still I heard them wander up and 

down 
That solitude, and flappings of dusk 

wings 
Did mingle with them, whether of those 



Let slip upon me once from Hades deep, 

Or of yet direr torments, if such be, 

I could but guess ; and then toward me 

came 
A shape as of a woman : very pale 
It was, and calm ; its cold eyes did not 

move, 
And mine moved not, but only stared on 

them. 
Their fixed awe went through my brain 

like ice ; 
A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my 

heart, 
And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fog 
Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt : 
And then, methought, I heard a freezing 

sigh, 
A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue 

lips 
Stiffening in death, close to mine ear. I 

thought 
Some doom was close upon me, and I 

looked 
And saw the red moon through the heavy 

mist, 
Just setting, and it seemed as it were 

falling, 
Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead 
And palsy-struck it looked. Then all 

sounds merged 
Into the rising surges of the pines, 
Which, leagues below me, clothing the 

gaunt loins 
Of ancient Caucasus with hairy strength, 
Sent up a murmur in the morning wind, 
Sad as the wail that from the populous 

earth 
All day and night to high Olympus soars, 
Fit incense to thy wicked throne, Jove ! 



Thy hated name is tossed once more in 
scorn 

From off my lips, for I will tell thy doom. 

And are these tears ? Nay, do not tri- 
umph, Jove ! 

They are wrung from me but by the ago- 
nies 

Of prophecy, like those sparse drops 
which fall 

From clouds in travail of the lightning, 
when 

The great wave of the storm high-curled 
and black 

Rolls steadily onward to its thunderous 
break. 

Why art thou made a god of, thou poor 
type 

Of anger, and revenge, and cunning force ? 

True Power was never born of brutish 
Strength, 

Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy 
dugs 

Of that old she-wolf. Are thy thunder- 
bolts, 

That quell the darkness for a space, so 
strong 

As the prevailing patience of meek Light, 

Who, with the invincible tenderness of 
peace, 

Wins it to be a portion of herself ? 

Why art thou made a god of, thou, who 
hast 

The never-sleeping terror at thy heart, 

That birthright of all tyrants, worse to 
bear 

Than this thy ravening bird on which I 
smile ? 

Thou swear'st to free me, if I will unfold 

What kind of doom it is whose omen flits 

Across thy heart, as o'er a troop of doves 

The fearful shadow of the kite. What 
need 

To know that truth whose knowledge 
cannot save ? 

Evil its errand hath, as well as Good ; 

When thine is finished, thou art known 
no more : 

There is a higher purity than thou, 

And higher purity is greater strength ; 

Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy 
heart 

Trembles behind the thick wall of thy 
might. 

Let man but hope, and thou art straight- 
way chilled 

With thought of that drear silence and 
deep night 



40 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



"Which, like a dream, shall swallow thee 

and thine : 
Let man but will, and thou art god no 

more, 
More capable of ruin than the gold 
And ivory that image thee on earth. 
He who hurled down the monstrous 

Titan-brood 
Blinded with lightnings, with rough 

thunders stunned, 
Is weaker than a simple human thought. 
My slender voice can shake thee, as the 

breeze, 
That seems but apt to stir a maiden's hair, 
Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole ; 
For I am still Prometheus, and foreknow 
In my wise heart the end and doom of all. 

Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grown 
By years of solitude, — that holds apart 
The past and future, giving the soul room 
To search into itself, — and long com- 
mune 
With this eternal silence ; — more a god, 
In my long-suffering and strength to meet 
With equal front the direst shafts of fate, 
Than thou in thy faint-hearted despot- 
ism, 
Girt with thy baby-toys of force and 

wrath. 
Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought 

down 
The light to man, which thou, in selfish 

fear, 
Hadst to thyself usurped, — his by sole 

right, 
For Man hath right to all save Tyr- 
anny, — 
And which shall free him yet from thy 
frail throne. 
I Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, 
Begotten hj the slaves they trample on, 
Who, could they win a glimmer of the 

light, 
And see that Tyranny is always weak- 
ness, 
Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease, 
Would laugh away in scorn the sand- 
wove chain 
Which their own blindness feigned for 
adamant. 
(Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but 

the Eight 
^To the firm centre lays its moveless base.^ 
( The tyrant trembles, if the air but stirs 
The innocent ringlets of a child's free 
hair, 



And crouches, when the thought of some 

great spirit, 
With world-wide murmur, like a rising 

gale, 
Over men's hearts, as over standing corn, 
Rushes, and bends them to its own strong 

will.) 
So shall some thought of mine yet circle 

earth, 
And puff away thy crumbling altars, 

Jove ! 

And, wouldst thou know of my su- 
preme revenge, 
Poor tyrant, even now dethroned in 

heart, 
Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are, 
Listen ! and tell me if this bitter peak, 
This never-glutted vulture, and these 

chains 
Shrink not before it ; for it shall befit 
A sorrow-taught, un conquered Titan- 
heart. 
Men, when their death is on them, seem 

to stand 
On a precipitous crag that overhangs 
The abyss of doom, and in that depth 

to see, 
As in a glass, the features dim and vast 
Of things to come, the shadows, as it 

seems, 
Of what have been, i Death ever fronts 

the wise ; 
Not fearfully, but with clear promises 
Of larger life, on whose broad vans up- 
borne, 
Their outlook widens, and they see be- 
yond 
The horizon of the Present and the Past, 
Even to the very source and end of 

things?) / 
Such am I now : { immortal woe hath 

made 
My heart a seer, and my soul a judge 
Between the substance and the shadow 

of Truth?) 
The sure supremeness of the Beautiful,') 
By all the martyrdoms made doubly sure 
Of such as I am, this is my revenge, 
Which of my wrongs builds a triumph a' 

arch. 
Through which I see a sceptre and v. 

throne. * 

The pipings of glad shepherds on the 

hills, 
Tending the flocks no more to bleed foi 
thee, — 



PROMETHEUS. 



41 



The songs of maidens pressing with white 

feet 
The vintage on thine altars ponred no 

more, — 
The murmurous bliss of lovers, under- 
neath 
Dim grapevine bowers, whose rosy 

bunches press 
Not half so closely their warm cheeks, 

unpaled 
By thoughts of thy brute lust, — the 

hive -like hum 
Of peaceful commonwealths, where sun- 
burnt Toil 
Reaps for itself the rich earth made its 

own 
By its own labor, lightened with glad 

hymns 
To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts 
Would cope with as a spark with the 

vast sea, — 
f Even the spirit of free love and peace, 
Duty's sure recompense through life and 

death, — 
These are such harvests as all master- 
spirits 
Reap, haply not on earth, but reap no 

less 
Because the sheaves are bound by hands 

not theirs ;^ 
These are the bloodless daggers where- 
withal 
They stab fallen tyrants, this their high 

revenge : 
(For their best part of life on earth is 

when, 
Long after death, prisoned and pent no 

more, 
Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, 

have become 
Part of the necessary air men breathe :"; 
When, like the moon, herself behind a 

cloud, 
They shed down light before us on life's 

sea, 
That cheers us to steer onward still in 

hope. 
rEarth with her twining memories ivies 

o'er 
Their holy sepulchres ; the chainless sea, 
In tempest or wide calm, repeats their 

thoughts ; 
The lightning and the thunder, all free 

things, 
Have legends of them for the ears of 

men.) 
All other glories are as falling stars, 



But universal Nature watches theirs : 
Such strength is won by love of human 
kind. 

i Not that I feel that hunger after fame, 
Which souls of a half-greatness are beset 

with ; 
But that the memory of noble deeds 
Cries shame upon the idle and the vile, "T*~ 
And keeps the heart of Man forever up 
To the heroic level of old time. 
To be forgot at first is little pain 
To a heart conscious of such high intent 
As must be deathless on the lips of men ; ) 
But, having been a name, to sink and be 
A something which the world can do 

without, 
Which, having been or not, would never 

change 
The lightest pulse of fate, — this is in- 
deed 
A cup of bitterness the worst to taste, 
And this thy heart shall empty to the 

dregs. 
Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus, 
And memory thy vulture ; thou wilt find 
Oblivion far lonelier than this peak, — ■ 
Behold thy destiny ! Thou think' st it 

much 
That I should brave thee, miserable god ! 
But I have braved a mightier than thou, 
Even the tempting of this soaring heart, 
Which might have made me, scarcely 

less than thou, 
A god among my brethren weak and 

blind, — 
Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thing 
To be down-trodden into darkness soon. 
But now I am above thee, for thou art 
The bungling workmanship of fear, the 

block 
That awes the swart Barbarian ; but I 
Am what myself have made, — a nature 

wise 
With finding in itself the types of all, — 
With watching from the dim verge of 

the time 
What things to be are visible in the 

gleams 
Thrown forward on them from the lumi- 
nous past, — 
Wise with the history of its own frail 

heart, 
With reverence and with sorrow, and 

with love, 
Broad as the world, for freedom and for 

man. 



42 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Thou and all strength shall crumble, 

except Love, 
By whom, and for whose glory, ye shall 

cease : 
And, when thou art but a dim moaning 

heard 
From out the pitiless gloom of Chaos, I 
Shall be a power and a memory, 
A name to fright all tyrants with, a 

light 
Unsetting as the pole-star, a great voice 
Heard in the breathless pauses of the 

light 
By truth and freedom ever waged with 

wrong, 
Clear as a silver trumpet, to awake 
Huge echoes that from age to age live 

on 
In kindred spirits, giving them a sense 
Of boundless power from boundless suf- 
fering wrung : 
And many a glazing eye shall smile to 

see 
The memory of my triumph (for to meet 
Wrong with endurance, and to overcome 
The present with a heart that looks be- 
yond, 
Are triumph), like a prophet eagle, perch 
Upon the sacred banner of the Right. 
Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears 

no seed, 
And feeds the green earth with its swift 

decay, 
Leaving it richer for the growth of 

truth ; 
But Good, once put in action or in 

thought, 
Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs 

shed down 
The ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak 

god, 
Shalt iade and be forgotten ! but this 

soul, 
Fresh-living still in the serene abyss, 
In every heaving shall partake, that 

grows 
From heart to heart among the sons of 

men, — 
As the ominous hum before the earth- 
quake runs 
Far through the iEgean from roused isle 

to isle, — 
Foreboding wreck to palaces and shrines. 
And mighty rents in many a cavernous 

error 
That darkens the free light to man : — 

This heart, 



Un scarred by thy grim vulture, as the 

truth 
Grows but more lovely 'neath the beaks 

and claws 
Of Harpies blind that fain would soil it, 

shall 
In all the throbbing exultations share 
That wait on freedom's triumphs, and 

in all 
The glorious agonies of martyr-spirits, — 
Sharp lightning- throes to split the jag- 
ged clouds 
That veil the future, showing them the 

end, — 
Pain's thorny crown for constancy and 

truth, 
Girding the temples like a wreath of 

stars. 
This is a thought, that, like the fabled 

laurel, 
Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy 

dread bolts 
Fall on me like the silent flakes of snow 
On the hoar brows of aged Caucasus : 
But, thought far more blissful, they 

can rend 
This cloud of flesh, and make my soul a 

star ! 

L^nleash thy crouching thunders now, 

Jove ! 
Free this high heart, which, a poor cap- 
tive long, 
Doth knock to be let forth, this heart 

which still, 
In its invincible manhood, overtops 
Thy puny godship, as this mountain doth 
The pines that moss its roots. 0, even 

now, 
AVhile from my peak of suffering I look 

down, 
Beholding with a far-spread gush of | 

hope 
The sunrise of that Beauty, in whose 

face, 
Shone all around with love, no m,an shall 

look 
But straightway like a god he is uplift 
Unto the throne long empty for his sake, , 
And clearly oft foreshadowed in wide 

dreams 
By his free inward nature, which nor 

thou, 
Nor any anarch after thee, can bind 
From working its great doom, — now, 

now set free 
This essence, not to die, but to become 



PROMETHEUS. 



43 



Part of that awful Presence which doth 

haunt 
The palaces of tyrants, to hunt off, 
With its grim eyes and fearful whisper- 
ings 
And hideous sense of utter loneliness, 
All hope of safety, all desire of peace, 
All but the loathed forefeeling of blank 

death, — 
Part of that spirit which doth ever brood 
In patient calm on the unpilfered nest 
Of man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts 

grow fledged 
To sail with darkening shadow o'er the 

world, 
Filling with dread such souls as dare not 

trust 
In the unfailing energy of Good, 
Until they swoop, and their pale quarry 

make 
Of some o'erbloated wrong, — that spirit 

which 
Scatters great hopes in the seed-field of 

man, 
Like acorns among grain, to grow and be 
A roof for freedom in all coming time ! 

But no, this cannot be ; for ages yet, 
In solitude unbroken, shall I hear 
The angry Caspian to the Euxine shout, 
And Euxine answer with a muffled roar, 
On either side storming the giant walls 
Of Caucasus with leagues of climbing 

foam 
(Less, from my height, than flakes of 

downy snow), 
That draw back baffled but to hurl again, 
Snatched up in wrath and horrible tur- 
moil, 
Mountain on mountain, as the Titans 

erst, 
My brethren, scaling the high seat of 

Jove, 
Heaved Pelion upon Ossa's shoulders 

broad 
In vain emprise. The moon will come 

and go 
With her monotonous vicissitude ; 
Once beautiful, when I was free to walk 
Among my fellows, and to interchange 
f The influence benign of loving eyes,^ 
But now b}^ aged use grown wearisome ; — 
False thought ! most false ! for how could 

I endure 
These crawling centuries of lonely woe 
Unshamed by weak complaining, but for 

thee, 



Loneliest, save me, of all created things, 
Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter, 
With thy pale smile of sad benignity ? 

Year after year will pass away and 

seem 
To me, in mine eternal agony, 
But as the shadows of dumb summer 

clouds, 
Which I have watched so often darken- 
ing o'er 
The vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide 

at first, 
But, with still swiftness, lessening on 

and on 
Till cloud and shadow meet and mingle 

where 
The gray horizon fades into the sky, 
Far, far to northward. Yes, for ages yet 
Must I lie here upon my altar huge, 
A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be, 
As it hath been, his portion; endless 

doom, 
While the immortal with the mortal 

linked 
Dreams of its wings and pines for what 

it dreams, 
With upward yearn unceasing. Better 
. so : 

^For wisdom is meek sorrow's patient 

child, 
And empire over self, and all the deep 
Strong charities that make men seem 

like gods ; 
And love, that makes them be gods, 

from her breasts 
Sucks in the milk that makes mankind 

one blood. ^ 
(Good never comes unmixed, or so it 

seems, 
Having two faces, as some images 
Are carved, of foolish gods; one face 

is ill ; 
But one heart lies beneath, and that is 

good, 
As are all hearts, when we explore their 

depths. ) 
^Therefore, great heart, bear up ! thou ar 

but type 
Of what all lofty spirits endure, that fain 
Would win men back to strength and 

peace through love : 
Each hath his lonely peak, and on each 

heart 
Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelong 
With vulture beak ; yet the high soul is 

left; 



44 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



And i faith, which is but hope grown 
wise ;^and love 

And patience, which at last shall over- 
come. \ 

THE SHEPHERD OF EJNG ADMETTJS. 

There came a youth upon the earth, 

Some thousand years ago, 
"Whose slender hands were nothing 

worth, 
Whether to plough, or reap, or sow. 

Upon an empty tortoise-shell 

He stretched some chords, and drew 
Music that made men's bosoms swell 
Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with 
dew. 

Then King Admetus, one who had 

Pure taste by right divine, 
Decreed his singing not too bad 
To hear between the cups of wine : 

And so, well pleased with being soothed 

Into a sweet half-sleep, 
Three times his kingly beard he smoothed, 
And made him viceroy o'er his sheep. 

His words were simple words enough, 

And yet he used them so, 
That what in other mouths was rough 
In his seemed musical and low. 

Men called him but a shiftless youth, 

In whom no good they saw; 
And yet, unwittingly, in truth, 
They made his careless words their law. 

They knew not how he learned at all, 

For icily, hour by hour, 
He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, 
Or mused upon a common flower. 

It seemed the loveliness of things 

Did teach him all their use, 
For, in mere weeds, and stones, and 

springs, 
He found a healing power profuse. 

Men granted that his speech was wise, 

But, when a glance they caught 
Of his slim grace and woman's eyes, 
They laughed, and called him good-for- 
naught. 

'Yet after he was dead and gone, 
And e'en his memory dim, 



Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, 
More full of love, because of him.") 

And day by day more holy grew 
Each spot where he had trod, 
Till after-poets only knew 
Their first-born brother as a god. 



THE TOKEN. 

It is a mere wild rosebud, 

Quite sallow now, and dry, 
Yet there 's something wondrous in it, 

Some gleams of days gone by, 
Dear sights and sounds that are to me 
The very moons of memory, 
And stir my heart's blood i'ar below 
Its short-lived waves of joy and woe. 

Lips must fade and roses wither, 

All sweet times be o'er ; 
They only smile, and, murmuring 
"Thither!" 

Stay with us no more : 
And yet ofttimes a look or smile, 
Forgotten in(a kiss's while,') 
Years after from the dark will start, 
And flash across the trembling heart. 

Thou hast given me many roses, 

But never one, like this, 
O'erfloods both sense and spirit 

With such a deep, wild bliss ; 
We must have instincts that glean up 
Sparse drops of this life in the cup, 
AVhose taste shall give us all that we 
Can prove of immortality. 

Earth's stablest things are shadows, 

And, in the life to come, 
Haply some chance-saved trifle 

May tell of this old home : 
(As now sometimes we seem to find, 
In a dark crevice of the mind, 
Some relic, which, long pondered o'er, 
Hints faintly at a life before.) 



AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR. 

He spoke of Burns : men rude and 

rough 
Pressed round to hear the praise of one 
Whose heart was made of manly, simple 
stuff, 
As homespun as their own. 



AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR. 



45 



And, when he read, they forward 

Jeaned, 
Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears, 
His brook -like songs whom glory never 
weaned 
From humble smiles and tears. 

Slowly there grew a tender awe, 
Sun -like, o'er faces brown and hard, 
As if in him who read they felt and saw 
Some presence of the bard. 

It was a sight for sin and wrong 
And slavish tyranny to see, 
A sight to make our faith more pure and 
strong 
In high humanity. 

I thought, these men will carry hence 
Promptings their former life above, 
And something of a finer reverence 
For beauty, truth, and love. 

God scatters love on every side 
Freely among his children all, 
And always hearts are tying open wide, 
Wherein some grains may fall. 

There is no wind but soweth seeds 
\ Of a more true and open life, 

Which burst, unlocked for, into high- 
souled deeds, 
With wayside beauty rife. 

We find within these souls of ours 
Some wild germs of a higher birth, 
f" Which in the poet's tropic heart bear 
flowers 
Whose fragrance fills the earth. 

Within the hearts of all men lie 
A These promises of wider bliss, 

Which blossom into hopes that cannot 
die, 
In sunny hours like this. 

All that hath been majestical 
Ar In life or death, since time began, 
Is native in the simple heart of all, 
The angel heart of man. 

And thus, among the untaught poor, 
Great deeds and feelings find a home, 
That cast in shadow all the golden lore 
Of classic Greece and Kome. 

. O, mighty brother-soul of man, 
Where'er thou art, in low or high, 



Thy skyey arches with exulting span 
O'er-roof infinity ! 

All thoughts that mould the age begin 
Deep down within the primitive soul, 
And from the many slowly upward win 
To one who grasps the whole : 

In his wide brain the feeling deep 
That struggled on the many's tongue 
Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges 
leap 
O'er the weak thrones of wrong. 

All thought begins in feeling, — wide 
In the great muss its base is hid, 
And, narrowing up to thought, stands 
glorified, 
A moveless pyramid. 

Nor is he far astray, who deems 
That every hope, which rises and ; " 
grows broad 
In the world's heart, by ordered impulse 
streams 
From the great heart of God. 

God wills, man hopes :^ in common 

souls 
Hope is but vague and undefined, 
Till from the poet's tongue the message -f- 
rolls 
A blessing to his kind. 

« 
Never did Poesy appear 
So full of heaven to me, as when 
I saw how it would pierce through pride ^, 
and fear 
To the lives of coarsest men. 

It may be glorious to write 
Thoughts .that shall glad the two or 
three 
High souls, like those far stars that 
come in sight 
Once in a century ; — 

But better far it is to speak 
One simple word, which now and then 
Shall waken their free nature in the 
weak 
And friendless sons of men ; 

To write some earnest verse or line, 
Which, seeking not the praise of art, ^ 
Shall make a clearer faith and manhood 
shine 
In the untutored heart. 



46 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



He who doth this, in verse or prose, 
May be forgotten in his day, 
But surely shall be crowned at last with 
those 
Who live and speak for aye. 



RHCECUS. 

God sends his teachers unto every age, 
To every clime, and every race of men, 
With revelations fitted to their growth 
And shape of mind, nor gives the realm 

of Truth 
Into the selfish rule of one sole race : 
Therefore each form of worship that hath 

swayed 
The life of man, and given it to grasp 
( The master-key of knowledge, rever- 
ence, *) 
Infolds some germs of goodness and of 

right ; 
Else never had the eager soul, which 

loathes 
The slothful down of pampered igno- 
rance, 
Found in it even a moment's fitful rest. 

( There is an instinct in the human 

heart 
Which makes that all the fables it hath 

coined, 
To justify the reign of its belief 
And strengthen it by beauty's right 

divine, 
Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift, 
Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful 

hands, 
Points surely to the hidden springs of 

truth. > 
For, as in nature naught is made in vain, 
But all things have within their hull of 

use 
A wisdom and a meaning which may 

speak 
Of spiritual secrets to the ear 
Of spirit ; so, in whatsoe'er the heart 
Hath fashioned for a solace to itself, 
To make its inspirations suit its creed, 
And from the niggard hands of falsehood 

wring 
Its needful food of truth, there ever is 
A sympathy with Nature, which reveals, 
Not less than her own works, pure 

gleams of light 
And earnest parables of inward lore. 
Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece, 



As full of freedom, youth, and beauty 

still 
As the immortal freshness of that grace 
Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze. 

A youth named Khcecus, wandering in 

the wood, 
Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall, 
And, feeling pity of so fair a tree, 
He propped its gray trunk with admir- 
ing care, 
And with a thoughtless footstep loitered 

on. 
But, as he turned, he heard a voice be- 
hind 
That murmured " PJicecus ! " 'T was as 

if the leaves, 
Stirred by a passing breath, had mur- 
mured it, 
And, while he paused bewildered, yet 

again 
It murmured " Rhoecus ! " softer than a 

breeze. 
He started and beheld with dizzy eyes 
What seemed the substance of a happy 

dream 
Stand there before him, spreading a warm 

glow 
Within the green glooms of the shadowy 

oak. 
It seemed a woman's shape, yet all too 

fair 
To be a woman, and with eyes too meek 
For any that were wont to mate with 

gods. 
'All naked like a goddess stood she there, 
"And like a goddess all too beautiful 
To feel the guilt- born earthliness of 

shame.^ 
" Rhoecus, I am the Dryad of this tree," 
Thus she began, dropping her low-toned 

words 
Serene, and full, and clear, as drops of 

dew, 
"And with it I am doomed to live and 

die ; 
The rain and sunshine are my caterers, 
Nor have I other bliss than simple life; 
Now ask me what thou wilt, that I can 

give, 
And with a thankful joy it shall be 

thine." 

Then Rhoecus, with a flutter at the 
heart, 
Yet, by the prompting of such beauty, 
bold, 



RHCECUS. 



47 



Answered : (" What is there that can 
satisfy 



The endless craving of the soul but love ?J He joined them, and forgot all else he- 



Give me thy love, or but the hope of that" 
Which must be evermore my nature's 

goal." 
After a little pause she said again. 
But with a glimpse of sadness in her 

tone, 
" I give it, Rhcecus, though a perilous 

gift; 
An hour before the sunset meet me here." 
And straightway there was nothing he 

could see 
But the green glooms beneath the shad- 
owy oak, 
And not a sound came to his straining 

ears 
But the low trickling rustle of the leaves, 
And far away upon an emerald slope 
The falter of an idle shepherd's pipe. 

{ Now, in those days of simpleness and 

faith, 
Men did not think that happy things 

were dreams 
Because they overstepped the narrow 

bourn ^/ 

Of likelihood, but reverently deemed 
Nothing too wondrous or too beautiful 
To be the guerdon of a daring hearth 
So Rhcecus made no doubt that he was 

blest, 
And all along unto the city's gate 
Earth seemed to spring beneath him as 

he walked, 
The clear, broad sky looked bluer than 

its wont, 
And he could scarce believe he had not 

wings, 
Such sunshine seemed to glitter through 

his veins 
Instead of blood, so light he felt and 

strange. 

Young Rhcecus had a faithful heart 
enough, 

But one that in the present dwelt too 
much, 

And, taking with blithe welcome what- 
soe'er 

Chance gave of joy, was wholly bound 
in that, 

Like the contented peasant of a vale, 

Deemed it -the world, and never looked 
beyond. 

So, haply meeting in the afternoon 



Some comrades who were playing at the 
dice, 



side. 

The dice were rattling at the mer- 
riest, 

And Rhcecus, who had met but sorry 
luck, 

Just laughed in triumph at a happy 
throw, 

When through the room there hummed 
a yellow bee 

That buzzed about his ear with down- 
dropped legs 

As if to light. And Rhcecus laughed 
and said, P 

Feeling how red and flushed he was with 
loss, 

"By Venus ! does he take me for a 
rose ? " 

And brushed him off with rough, im- 
patient hand. 

But still the bee came back, and thrice 
again 

Rhcecus did beat him off with growing 
wrath. 

Then through the window flew the 
wounded bee, 

And Rhcecus, tracking him with angry 
eyes, 

Saw a sharp mountain-peak of Thessaly 

Against the red disk of the setting sun , — 

And instantly the blood sank from his 
heart, 

As if its very walls had caved away. 

Without a word he turned, and, rushing 
forth, 

Ran madly through the city and the gate, 

And o'er the plain, which now the wood's 
long shade, 

By the low sun thrown forward broad 
and dim, 

Darkened wellnigh unto the city's wall. 

Quite spent and out of breath he 
reached the tree, 

And, listening fearfully, he heard onct 
more 

The low voice murmur "Rhcecus ! " close 
at hand : 

Whereat he looked around him, but could 
see 

Naught but the deepening glooms be- 
neath the oak. 

Then sighed the voice, "'0 Rhcecus! 
nevermore 



48 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Shalt thou behold me or by day or night, 
Me, who would fain have blessed thee 

with a love 
More ripe and bounteous than ever yet 
Filled up with nectar any mortal heart : 
But thou didst scorn my humble mes- 
senger, 
And sent'st him back to me with bruised 

wings. 
We spirits only show to gentle eyes, 
We ever ask an undivided love, 
.And he who scorns the least of Nature's 
works 
Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from 

all. S 
Farewell ! for thou canst never see me 
more." 

Then Rhcecus beat his breast, and 
groaned aloud, 
And cried, " Be pitiful ! forgive me yet 
This once, and I shall never need it 

more ! " 
" Alas ! " the voice returned, " 'tis thou 

art blind, 
Not I unmerciful ; I can forgive, 
But have no skill to heal thy spirit's 

eyes; 
Only the soul hath power o'er itself." 
With that again there murmured "Nev- 
ermore! " 
And Rhcecus after heard no other sound, 
Except the rattling of the oak's crisp 

leaves, 
Like the long surf upon a distant shore, 
Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and 

down. 
The night had gathered round him: o'er 

the plain 
The city sparkled with its thousand 

lights, 
And sounds of revel fell upon his ear 
Harshly and like a curse; above^the sky, 
Y\ 7 ith all its bright sublimity of stars,^ 
Deepened, and on his forehead smote the 

breeze : 
Beauty was all around him and de- 
light, 
But from that eve he was alone on earth. 



THE FALCON. 

I know a falcon swift and peerless 
As e'er was cradled in the pine; 

No bird had ever eye so fearless, 
Or wing so strong as this of mine. 



The winds not better love to pilot 
A cloud with molten gold o'errun, 

Than him, a little burning islet, 
A star above the coming sun. 

For with a lark's heart he doth tower, 
By a glorious upward instinct drawn ; 

No bee nestles deeper in the flower 
Thau he in the bursting rose of dawn. 

No harmless clove, no bird that singe th, 
Shudders to see him overhead ; 

The rush of his tierce swooping bringeth 
To innocent hearts no thrill of dread. 

Let fraud and wrong and baseness shiver, 
For still between them and the sky 

The falcon Truth hangs poised forever 
And marks them with his vengeful eye. 



TRIAL. 



Whether the idle prisoner through his 

grate 
Watches the waving of the grass-tuft 

small, 
Which, having colonized its rift i' the 

wall, 
Takes its free risk of good or evil fate, 
And from the sky's just helmet draws its 

lot 
Daily of shower or sunshine, cold or 

hot ; — 
Whether the closer captive of a creed, 
Cooped up from birth to grind out end- 
less chaff, 
Sees through his treadmill-bars the noon- 
day laugh, 
And feels in vain his crumpled pinions 

breed ; — 
Whether the Georgian slave look up and 

mark, 
With bellying sails puffed full, the tall 

cloud-bark 
Sink northward slowly, — thou alone 

seem'st good, 
Fair only thou, Freedom, whose desire 
Can light in muddiest souls quick seeds 

of fire, 
And strain life's chords to the old heroic 

mood. 



Yet are there other gifts more fair than 

thine, 
Nor can I count him happiest who has 

never 



A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN. 



49 



Been forced with his own hand his chains 

to sever, 
And for himself find out the way divine ; 
He never knew the aspirer's glorious 

pains, 
He never earned the struggle's priceless 

gains. 
0, block by block, with sore and sharp 

endeavor, 
Lifelong we build these human natures 

up 
Into a temple fit for freedom's shrine, 
And Trial ever consecrates the cup 
Wherefrom we pour her sacrificial wine. 



A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN. 

We see but half the causes of our deeds, 
Seeking them wholly in the outer life, 
And heedless of the encircling spirit- 
world, 
Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows 

in us 
All germs of pure and world-wide pur- 
poses. 
From one stage of our being to the next 
We pass unconscious o'er a slender bridge, 
The momentary work of unseen hands, 
Which crumbles down behind us ; look- 
ing back, 
We see the other shore, the gulf between, 
And, marvelling how we won to where 

we stand, 
Content ourselves to call the builder 

Chance. 
We trace the wisdom to the apple's fall, 
Not to the birth-throes of a mighty 

Truth 
Which, for long ages in blank Chaos 

dumb, 
Yet yearned to be incarnate, and had 

found 
At. last a spirit meet to be the womb 
From which it might be born to bless 

mankind, — 
Not to the soul of Newton, ripe with all 
The hoarded thoughtfulness of earnest 

years, 
And waiting but one ray of sunlight 

more 
To blossom fully. 

But whence came that ray ? 
We call our sorrows Destiny, but ought 
Rather to name our high successes so. 
Only the instincts of great souls are Fate, 



And have predestined sway : all other 

things, 
Except by leave of us, could never be. 
[For Destiny is but the breath of God 
Still moving in us, the last fragment left 
Of our unfallen nature, waking oft 
Within our thought, to beckon us be- 
yond 
The narrow circle of the seen and known, 
And always tending to a noble end, 
As all things must that overrule the soul, 
And for a space unseat the helmsman, 

Will.^ 
The fate of England and of freedom once 
Seemed wavering in the heart of one 

plain man : 
One step of his, and the great dial-hand, 
That marks the destined progress of the 

world 
In the eternal round from wisdom on 
To higher wisdom, had been made to 

pause 
A hundred years. That step he did not 

take, — 
He knew not why, nor we, but only 

God,— 
And lived to make his simple oaken chair 
More terrible and grandly beautiful, 
More full of majesty than any throne, 
Before or after, of a British king. 

Upon the pier stood two stern-visaged 

men, 
Looking to where a little craft lay 

moored, 
Swayed by^ the lazy current of the 

Thames, 
Which weltered by in muddy listlessness. 
Grave men they were, and battlings of 

fierce thought 
Had trampled out all softness from their 

brows, 
And ploughed rough furrows there before 

their time, 
For other crop than such as homebred 

Peace 
Sows broadcast in the willing soil of 

Youth. 
Care, not of self, but of the common- 
weal, 
Had robbed their eyes of youth, and left 

instead 
A look of patient power and iron will, 
And something fiercer, too, that gave 

broad hint 
Of the plain weapons girded at their 

sides. 



50 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



The younger had an aspect of com- 
mand, — 

Not such as trickles down, a slender 
stream, 

In the shrunk channel of a great de- 
scent, 

But such as lies entowered in heart and 
head, 

And an arm prompt to do the 'hests of 
both. 

His was a brow where gold were out of 
place, 

.And yet it seemed right worthy of a 
crown 

(Though he despised such), were it only 
made 

Of iron, or some serviceable stuff 

That would have matched his sinewy 
brown face. 

The elder, although such he hardly 
seemed 

(Care makes so little of some five short 
years), 

Had a clear, honest face, whose rough- 
hewn strength 

"Was mildened by the scholar's wiser 
heart 

To sober courage, such as best befits 

The unsullied temper of a well-taught 
mind, 

Yet so remained that one could plainly 
guess 

The hushed volcano smouldering under- 
neath. 

He spoke : the other, hearing, kept his 
gaze 

Still fixed, as on some problem in the 
sky. 

1 ' Cromwell, we are fallen on evil 

times ! 
There was a day when England had wide 

room 
For honest men as well as foolish kings : 
But now the uneasy stomach of the time 
Turns squeamish at them both. There- 
fore let us 
Seek out that savage clime, where men 

as yet 
Are free : there sleeps the vessel on the 

tide, 
Her languid canvas drooping for the 

wind ; 
Give us but that, and what need we to 

fear 
This Order of the Council? The free 

waves 



Will not say, No, to please a wayward 

king, 
Nor will the winds turn traitors at his 

beck : 
All things are fitly cared for, and the 

Lord 
"Will watch as kindly o'er the exodus 
Of us his servants now, as in old time. 
We have no cloud or fire, and haply we 
May not pass dry-shod through the 

ocean-stream ; 
But, saved or lost, all things are in His 

hand." 
So spake he, and meantime the other 

stood 
With wide gray eyes still reading the 

blank air, 
As if upon the sky's blue wall he saw 
Some mystic sentence, written by a hand, 
Such as of old made pale the Assyrian 

king, 
Girt with his satraps in the blazing feast. 

"Hampden! a moment since, my 

purpose was 
To fly with thee, — for I will call it 

flight, 
Nor flatter it with any smoother name, — 
But something in me bids me not to go ; 
And I am one, thou knowest, who, un- 
moved 
By what the weak deem omens, yet give 

heed 
And reverence due to whatsoe'er my soul 
Whispers of warning to the inner ear. 
Moreover, as I know that God brings 

round 
His purposes in ways undreamed by us, 
And makes the wicked but his instru-j 

ments 
To hasten their own swift and sudden fall, 
I see the beauty of his providence 
In the King's order : blind, he will not 

let 
His doom part from him, but must bid 

it stay 
As 't were a cricket, whose enlivening 

chirp 
He loved to hear beneath his very hearth. 
Why should we fly? Nay, why not 

rather stay 
And rear again* our Zion's crumbled 

walls, 
Not, as of old the walls of Thebes were 

built, 
By minstrel twanging, but, if need 

should be, 



A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN. 



51 



With the more potent music of our 

swords ? 
Think' st thou that score of men beyond 

the sea 
Claim more God's care than all of Eng- 

land here ? 
No : when he moves His arm, it is to 

aid 
Whole peoples, heedless if a few be 

crushed, 
As some are ever, when the destiny 
Of man takes one stride onward nearer 

home. 
Believe it, 'tis the mass of men He 

loves; 
And, where there is most sorrow and 

most want, 
Where the high heart of man is trodden 

down 
The most, 't is not because He hides his 

face 
From them in wrath, as purblind teach- 
ers prate : 
Not so : there most is He, for there is 

He 
Most needed. Men who seek for Fate 

abroad 
Are not so near His heart as they who 

dare 
Frankly to face her where she faces them, 
On their own threshold, where their souls 

are strong 
To grapple with and throw her; as I 

once, 
Being yet a boy, did cast this puny king, 
Who now has grown so dotard as to 

deem 
That he can wrestle with an angry realm, 
And throw the brawned Antaeus of men's 

rights. 
No, Hampden ! they have half-way con- 
quered Fate 
Who go half-way to meet her, — as 

will I. 
Freedom hath yet a work for me to do ; 
So speaks that inward voice which never 

yet 
Spake falsely, when it urged the spirit 

on 
To noble deeds for country and mankind. 
And, for success, I ask no more than 

this, — 

To bear unflinching witness to the truth. 

(All true whole men succeed ;^for what is 

worth 

Success's name, unless it be the thought, 

The inward surety, to have carried out 



A noble purpose to a noble end, 
Although it be the gallows or the block ? 
'T is only Falsehood that doth ever need 
These outward shows of gain to bolster 

her. 
Be it we prove the weaker with our 

swords ; 
Truth only needs to be for once spoke 

out, 
And there 's such music in her, such 

strange rhythm, 
As makes men's memories her joyous 

slaves, 
And clings around the soul, as the sky 

clings 
Round the mute earth, forever beauti- 
ful, 
And, if o'erclouded, only to burst forth 
More all-embracingly divine and clear : 
Get but the truth once uttered, and 't is 

like 
A star new-born, that drops into its 

place, 
And which, once circling in its placid 

round, 
Not all the tumult of the earth can 

shake. } 

"What should we do in that small 
colony 

Of pinched fanatics, who would rather 
choose 

Freedom to clip an inch more from their 
hair, 

Than the great chance of setting Eng- 
land free ? 

Not there, amid the stormy wilderness, 

Should we learn wisdom ; or if learned, 
what room 

To put it into act, — else worse than 
naught ? 

We learn our souls more, tossing for an 
hour 

Upon this huge and ever- vexed sea 

Of human thought, where kingdoms go 
to wreck 

Like fragile bubbles yonder in the 
stream, 

Than in a cycle of New England sloth, 

Broke only by some petty Indian war, 

Or quarrel for a letter more or less 

In some hard word, which, spelt in 
either way, 

Not their most learned clerks can un- 
derstand. 

r New times demand new measures and y 
new men; 



52 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



The world advances, and in time out- 
grows 
The laws that in our fathers' day were 

best; 
And, doubtless, after us, some purer 

scheme 
Will be shaped out by wiser men than 

we, 
Made wiser by the steady growth of 

truth. 
We cannot bring Utopia by force ; 
But better, almost, be at work in sin, 
Than in a brute inaction browse and 

sleep. 
I Is o man is born into the world, whose 

work 
Is not born with him ; there is always 

work, 
And tools to work withal, for those who 

will ; 
And blessed are the horny hands of toil ! 
The busy world shoves angrily aside 
The man who stands with arms akimbo 

set, 
Until occasion tells him what to do ; 
And he who waits to have his task 

marked out . 

L Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. J 
1 Our time is one that calls for earnest 

deeds : 
Reason and Government, like two broad 

seas, 
Yearn for each other with outstretched 

arms 
Across this narrow isthmus of the throne, 
And roll their white surf higher every 

day. 
One age moves onward, and the next 

builds up 
Cities and gorgeous palaces, where stood 
The rude log huts of those who tamed 

the wild, 
Rearing from out the forests they had 

felled 
The goodly framework of a fairer state ; 
The builder's trowel and the settler's axe 
Are seldom wielded by the selfsame 

hand ; 
Ours is the harder task, yet not the less 
Shall we receive the blessing for our toil 
From the choice spirits of the aftertime. 
( My soul is not a palace of the past, 
Where outworn creeds, like Rome's gray 

senate, quake, 
Hearing afar the Vandal's trumpet hoarse, 
That shakes old systems with a thunder- 
fit. ) 



and rotten-ripe, foi 
I have no dread of 



The time is ripe, 

change ; 
Then let it come: 

what 
Is called for by the instinct of mankind ; 
Nor think I that God's world will fall 

apart 
Because we tear a parchment more or 
* less. 

^ Truth is eternal, but her effluence, 
With endless change, is fitted to the 

hour ; 
Her mirror is turned forward to reflect 
The promise of the future, not the past. 
He who would win the name of truly 

great 
Must understand his own age and the 

next, 
And make the present ready to fulfil 
Its prophecy, and with the future merge 
Gently and peacefully, as wave with 
>■ wave. ^ 

The future works out great men's des- 
tinies ; 
The present is enough for common souls, 
Who, never looking forward, are indeed 
Mere clay, wherein the footprints of 

their age . 

Are petrified forever Abetter those 
Who lead the blind old giant by the 

hand 
From out the pathless desert where he 

gropes, 
And set him onward in his darksome 

f wa y- 

I do not fear to follow out the truth, 
Albeit along the precipice's edge.*) 
/Let us speak plain : there is more force 

in names 
Than most men dream of ;\and a lie may 

keep 
Its throne a whole age longer, if it skulk 
Behind the shield of some fair-seeming 

name.') 
Let us call tyrants tyrants, and main- 
tain 
That only freedom comes by grace of 

God, 
And all that comes not by his grace must 

fall; 
For men in earnest have no time tc waste 
In patching fig-leaves for the naked 

truth. 

"I will have one more grapple with 
the man 
Charles Stuart : whom the boy o'ercame, 



A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN. 



53 



The man stands not in awe of. ( I, per- 
chance, 

Am one raised up by the Almighty arm 

To witness some great truth to all the 
s world.} 

( Souls destinecf to o'erleap the vulgar lot, 

And mould the world unto the scheme 
of God, 

Have a fore-consciousness of their high 
doom, 

As men are known to shiver at the heart 

When the cold shadow of some coming 
ill 

Creeps slowly o'er their spirits unawares^ 

Hath Good less power of prophecy than 
111? 

How else could men whom God hath 
called to sway 

Earth's rudder, and to steer the hark of 
Truth, 

Beating against the tempest tow'rd her 
port, 

Bear all the mean and buzzing griev- 
ances, 

The petty martyrdoms, wherewith Sin 
strives 

To weary out the tethered hope of Faith, 

The sneers, the unrecognizing look of 
friends, 

Who worship the dead corpse of old king 
Custom, 

Where it doth lie in state within the 
Church, 

Striving to cover up the mighty ocean 

With a man's palm, and making even 
.the truth 

Lie for them, holding up the glass re- 
versed, 

To make the hope of man seem farther 

off? 
/My God ! when I read o'er the bitter lives 

Of men whose eager hearts were quite 
too great 

To beat beneath the cramped mode of 
the da}% 

And see them mocked at by the world 
they love, 

Haggling with prejudice for penny- 
worths 

Of that reform which their hard toil will 
make 

The common birthright of the age to 
come, — 

When I see this, spite of my faith in 
God, 

I marvel how their hearts bear up so 
long; 



Nor could they but for this same proph- 
ecy, % 
This inward feeling of the glorious end.] 

\ "Deem me not fond; but in my 

warmer youth, 
Ere my heart's bloom was soiled and 

brushed away, 
I had great dreams of mighty things to 

come ; 
Of conquest, whether by the sword or 

pen 
I knew not ; but some conquest I would 

have, 
Or else swift death : now wiser grown in 

years, 
I find youth's dreams are but the flut- 

terings 
Of those strong wings whereon the soul 

shall soar 
In after time to win a starry throne ;) 
And so I cherish them, for they were lots, 
Which I, a boy, cast in the helm of 

Fate. N j 
Now will I draw them, since a man'* 

right hand, 
A right hand guided by an earnest soul, 
With a true instinct, takes the golden 

prize 
From out a thousand blanks. \ What 

men call luck 
Is the prerogative of valiant souls, 
The fealty life pays its rightful kings. 
The helm is shaking now, and I will stay 
To pluck my lot forth ; it were sin to 

flee!" 

So they two turned together; one to 

die, 
Fighting for freedom on the bloody field ; 
The other, far more happy, to become 
A name earth wears forever next her 

heart ; 
One of the few that have a right to rank 
With the true Makers : for his spirit 

wrought 
Order from Chaos ; proved that right 

divine 
Dwelt only in the excellence of truth ; 
And far within old Darkness' hostile 

lines 
Advanced and pitched the shining tents 

of Light. 
Nor shall the grateful- Muse forget to 

tell, 
That — not the least among his many 

claims 



54 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



To deathless honor — he was Milton's 

friend, 
A man not second among those who 

lived 
To show us that the poet's lyre demands 
An arm of tougher sinew than the sword. 



A CHIPPEWA LEGEND.* 

aXyciva \s.iv /ixot /cat Aeyeiv Icriv rdSe 
akyos de atyav. 

iEscHYLus, Prom. Vinct. 197, 198. 

The old Chief, feeling now wellnigh 

his end, 
Called his two eldest children to his side, 
And gave them, in few words, his parting 

charge ! 
"My son and daughter, me ye see no 

more ; 
The happy hunting-grounds await me, 

green 
"With change of spring and summer 

through the year : 
But, for remembrance, after I am gone, 
Be kind to little Sheemah for my sake : 
Weakling he is and young, and knows 

not yet 
To set the trap, or draw the seasoned 

bow; 
Therefore of both your loves he hath 

more need, 
And he, who needeth love, to love hath 

right ; 
It is not like our furs and stores of corn, 
Whereto we claim sole title by our toil, 
But the Great Spirit plants it in our 

hearts, 
And waters it, and gives it sun, to be 
The common stock and heritage of all : 
Therefore be kind to Sheemah, that 

yourselves 
May not be left deserted in your need." 

Alone, beside a lake, their wigwam 

stood, 
Far from the other dwellings of their 

tribe ; 
And, after many moons, the loneliness 
Wearied the elder brother, and he said, 
"Why should I dwell here all alone, 

shut out 
From the free, natural joys that fit my 

age? 

* For the leading incidents in this tale I 
am indebted to the very valuable " Algic 
Researches " of Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq. 



Lo, I am tall and strong, well skilled to 

hunt, 
Patient of toil and hunger, and not yet 
Have seen the danger which I dared not 

look 
Full in the face ; what hinders me to be 
A mighty Brave and Chief among my 

kin?" 
So, taking up his arrows and his bow, 
As if to hunt, he journeyed swiftly on, 
Until he gained the wigwams of his 

tribe, 
Where, choosing out a bride, he soon 

forgot, 
In all the fret and bustle of new life, 
The little Sheemah and his father's 

charge. 

Now when the sister found her brother 

gone, 
And that, for many days, he came not 

back, 
She wept for Sheemah more than for 
„ herself ; 

For Love bides longest in a woman's 

heart, 
And flutters many times before he flies, 
And then doth perch so nearly, that a 

word 
May lure him back, as swift and glad as 

light; 
And Duty lingers even when Love is 

gone, 
Oft looking out in hope of his return; 
And, after Duty hath been driven forth, 
Then Selfishness creeps in the last of all, 
Warming her lean hands at the lonely 

hearth, 
And crouching o'er the embers, to shut 

out 
Whatever paltry warmth and light are 

left, 
With avaricious greed, from all beside.") 
So, for long months, the sister hunted 

wide, 
And cared for little Sheemah tenderly ; 
But, daily more and more, the loneliness 
Grew wearisome, and to herself she 
f sighed, 

V"Am I not fair? at least the glassy pool, 
That hath no cause to flatter, tells me so ; 
But, 0, how flat and meaningless the tale, 
Unless it tremble on a lover's tongue ! } 
rBeauty hath no true glass, except it be 
In the sweet privacy of loving eyes.") 
Thus deemed she idly, and forgot the 

lore 



A CHIPPEWA LEGEND. 



55 



Which she had learned of nature and the 

f woods, 

That beauty's chief reward is to itself, 
And that the eyes of Love reflect alone 
The inward fairness, which is blurred 

and lost 
Unless kept clear and white by Duty's 

care.^ 
So she went forth and sought the haunts 

of men, 
And, being wedded, in her household 

cares, 
Soon, like the elder brother, quite forgot 
The little Sheemah and her father's 

charge. 

But Sheemah, left alone within the 

lodge, 
Waited and waited, with a shrinking 

heart, 
Thinking each rustle was his sister's step, 
Till hope grew less and less, and then 

went out, 
And every sound was changed from hope 

to fear. 
Few sounds there were : — the dropping 

of a nut, 
The squirrel's chirrup, and the jay's 

harsh scream, 
Autumn's sad remnants of blithe Sum- 
mer's cheer, 
Heard at long intervals, seemed but to 

make 
The dreadful void of silence silenter. 
Soon what small store his sister left was 

gone, 
And, through the Autumn, he made shift 

to live 
On roots and berries, gathered in much 

fear 
Of wolves, whose ghastly howl he heard 

ofttimes, 
Hollow and hungry, at the dead of night. 
But Winter came at last, and, when the 

snow, 
Thick-heaped for gleaming leagues o'er 

hill and plain, 
Spread its unbroken silence over all, 
Made bold by hunger, he was fain to 

glean 
(More sick at heart than Euth, and all 

alone) 
After the harvest of the merciless wolf, 
Grim Boaz, who, sharp-ribbed and gaunt, 

yet feared 
A thing more wild and starving than 

himself; 



Till, by degrees, the wolf and he grew 

friends, 
And shared together all the winter 

through. 

Late in the Spring, when all the ice 

was gone, 
The elder brother, fishing in the lake, 
Upon whose edge his father's wigwam 

stood, 
Heard a low moaning noise upon the 

shore : 
Half like a child it seemed, half like a 

wolf, 
And straightway there was something in 

his heart 
That said, " It is thy brother gheemah's 

voice." 
So, paddling swiftly to the bank, he saw, 
Within a little thicket close at hand, 
A child that seemed fast changing to a 

wolf, 
From the neck downward, gray with 

shaggy hair, 
That still crept on and upward as he 

looked. 
The face was turned away, but well he 

knew 
That it was Sheemah's, even his broth- 
er's face. 
Then with his trembling hands he hid 

his eyes, 
And bowed his head, so that he might 

not see 
The first look of his brother's eyes, and 

cried, 
" Sheemah ! my brother, speak to 

me ! 
Dost thou not know me, that I am thy 

brother? 
Come to me, little Sheemah, thou shalt 

dwell 
With me henceforth, and know no care 

or want!" 
Sheemah was silent for a space, as if 
'T were hard to summon up a human 

voice, 
And, when he spake, the sound was of 

a wolfs : 
"I know thee not, nor art thou what 

thou say'st ; 
I have none other brethren than the 

wolves, 
And, till thy heart be changed from 

what it is, 
Thou art not worthy to be called their 
^ kin." 



56 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Then groaned the other, with a choking 

tongue, 
"Alas! my heart is changed right bit- 
terly ; 
'T is shrunk and parched within me 

even now !" 
And, looking upward fearfully, he saw 
Only a wolf that shrank away and ran, 
Ugly and fierce, to hide among the 
woods. 



STANZAS ON FREEDOM. 

Men ! whose boast it is that ye 
Come of fathers brave and free, 
If there breathe on earth a slave, 
Are ye truly free and brave ? 
If ye do not feel the chain, 
When it works a brother's pain, 
Are ye not base slaves indeed, 
Slaves unworthy to be freed ? 

Women ! who shall one day bear 
Sons to breathe New England air, 
If ye hear, without a blush, 
Deeds to make the roused blood rush 
Like red lava through your veins, 
For your sisters now in chains, — 
Answer ! are ye fit to be 
Mothers of the brave and free ? 

Is true Freedom but to break 
Fetters for our own dear sake, 
And, with leathern hearts, forget 
That we owe mankind a debt ? 
No ! true freedom is to share 
All the chains our brothers wear, 
And, with heart and hand, to be 
Earnest to make others free ! 

They are slaves who fear to speak 
For the fallen and the weak ; 
They are slaves who will not choose 
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, 
Rather than in silence shrink 
/ From the truth they needs must think ; 
They are slaves who clare not be 
In the right with two or threes; 



COLTJMBTJS. 

The cordage creaks and rattles in the 
wind, 

With whims of sudden hush ; the reel- 
ing sea 



Now thumps like solid rock beneath the 

stern, 
Now leaps with clumsy wrath, strikes 

short, and, falling 
Crumbled to whispery foam, slips rus- 
tling down 
The broad backs of the waves, which 

jostle and crowd 
To fling themselves upon that unknown 

shore, 
Their used familiar since the dawn of 

time, 
Whither this foredoomed life is guided 

on 
To sway on triumph's hushed, aspiring 

poise 
One glittering moment, then to break 

fulfilled. 

How lonely is the sea's perpetual swing, 
The melancholy wash of endless waves, 
The sigh of some grim monster unde- 

scried, 
Fear-painted on the canvas of the dark, 
Shifting on his uneasy pillow of brine ! 
Yet night brings more companions than 

the day 
To this drear waste ; new constellations 

burn, 
And fairer stars, with whose calm height 

my soul 
Finds nearer sympathy than with my 

herd I 

Of earthen souls, whose vision's scanty 

ring 
Makes me its prisoner to beat my wings 
Against the cold bars of their unbe- 
lief, 
Knowing in vain my own free heaven 

beyond. 
fo God ! this world, so crammed with 

eager life, 
That comes and goes and wanders back 

to silence 
Like the idle w T ind, which yet man's 

shaping mind 
Can make his drudge to swell the long- 
ing sails 
Of highest endeavor, — this mad, un- 

thrift world, 
Which, every hour, throws life enough 

away 
To make her deserts kind and hospita* 

ble, 
Lets her great destinies be waved asi^e 
By smooth, lip-reverent, formal in fin 

dels, 



COLUMBUS. 



57 



Who weigh the God they not believe 

with gold, 
And find no spot in Judas, save that he, 
Driving a duller bargain than he ought, 
Saddled his guild with too cheap prece- 
dent.^ 
Faith ! if thou art strong, thine oppo- 
site 
Is mighty also, and the dull fool's sneer 
Hath ofttimes shot chill palsy through 

the arm 
Just lifted to achieve its crowning deed, 
And made the firm-based heart, that 

would have quailed 
The rack or fagot, shudder like a leaf 
Wrinkled with frost, and loose upon its 

stem. 
The wicked and the weak, by some dark 

law, 
Have a strange power to shut and rivet 

down 
Their own horizon round us, to unwing 
Our heaven-aspiring visions, and to blur 
With surly clouds the Future's gleam- 
ing peaks, 
Far seen across the brine of thankless 

years. 
(If the chosen soul could never be alone 
In deep mid-silence, open-doored to God, 
No greatness ever had been dreamed or 

done ;) 
Among dull hearts a prophet never 
grew ; 
( The nurse of full-grown souls is soli- 
tude.") 

The old world is effete ; there man with 

man 
Jostles, and, in the brawl for means to 

live, 
Life is trod underfoot,- — Life, the one 

block 
Of marble that 's vouchsafed wherefrom 

to carve 
Our great thoughts, white and godlike, 

to shine down 
The future, Life, the irredeemable block, 
Which one o'er-hasty chisel-dint oft 

mars, 
Scanting our room to cut the features 

out 
Of our full hope, so forcing us to crown 
With a mean head the perfect limbs, or 

leave 
The god's face glowing o'er a satyr's 

trunk, 
Failure's brief epitaph^ 



Yes, Europe's world 
Reels on to judgment; there the com- 
mon need, 
Losing God's sacred use, to be a bond 
'Twixt Me and Thee, sets each one 

scowlingly 
O'er his own selfish hoard at bay; no 

state, 
Knit strongly with eternal fibres up 
Of all men's separate and united weals, 
Self-poised and sole as stars, yet one as 

light, 
Holds up a shape of large Humanity 
To which by natural instinct every 

man 
Pays loyalty exulting, by which all 
Mould their own lives, and feel their 

pulses filled 
With the red, fiery blood of the general 

life, 
Making them mighty in peace, as now 

in war 
They are, even in the flush of victory, 

weak, 
Conquering that manhood which should 

them subdue. 
And what gift bring I to this untried 

world ? 
Shall the same tragedy be played anew, 
And the same lurid curtain drop at 

last 
On one dread desolation, one fierce crash 
Of that recoil which on its makers God 
Lets Ignorance and Sin and Hunger 

make, 
Early or late? Or shall that common- 
wealth 
Whose potent unity and concentric force 
Can draw these scattered joints and 

parts of men 
Into a whole ideal man once more, 
Which sucks not from its limbs the life 

away, 
But sends its flood-tide and creates 

itself 
Over again in every citizen, 
Be there built up ? For me, I have no 

choice ; 
I might turn back to other destinies, 
For/one sincere key opes all Fortune's 

doors ; 
But whoso answers not God's earliest 

call 
Forfeits or dulls that faculty supreme 
Of lying open to his genius 
Which makes the wise heart certain of 

its ends, j 



58 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Here am I ; for what end God knows, 
not I ; 

Westward still points the inexorable 
soul : 

Here am I, with no friend but the sad 
sea, 

The beating heart of this great enter- 
prise, 

"Which, without me, would stiffen in 
swift death ; 

This have I mused on, since mine eye 
could first 

Among the stars distinguish and with 

joy 

Eest on that God-fed Pharos of the 

north, 
On (some blue promontory of heaven^ 

lighted 
That juts far out into the upper sea ; 
To this one hope my heart hath clung for 

years, 
As would a foundling to the talisman 
Hung round his neck by hands he knew 

not whose ; 
A poor, vile thing and dross to all beside, 
Yet he therein can feel a virtue left 
By the sad pressure of a mother's hand, 
And unto him it still is tremulous 
With palpitating haste and wet with 

tears, 
The key to him of hope and humanness, 
The coarse shell of life's pearl, Expect- 
ancy. 
This hope hath been to me for love and 

fame, 
Hath made me wholly lonely on the 

earth, 
Building me up as in a thick-ribbed 

tower, 
Wherewith enwalled my watching spirit 

burned, 
Conquering its little island from the 

Dark, 
Sole as a scholar's lamp, and heard men's 

steps, 
In the far hurry of the outward world, 
Pass dimly forth and back, sounds heard 

in dream. 
: As Ganymede by the eagle was snatched 

up 
From the gross sod to be Jove's cup- 
bearer, 
So was I lifted by my great design ^ 
( And who hath trod Olympus, from his 

eye 
Fades not that broader outlook of the 

gods ; 



His life's low valleys overbrow earth's 

clouds, 
And that Olympian spectre of the past 
Looms towering up in sovereign memory, 
Beckoning his soul from meaner heights 

of doom.") 
Had but the shadow of the Thunderer's 

bird, 
Flashing athwart my spirit, made of me 
A swift-betraying vision's Ganymede, 
Yet(to have greatly dreamed precludes 

low ends ; ) 
[Great days have ever such a morning-red, 
On such a base great futures are built up, 
And aspiration, though not put in act, 
Comes back to ask its plighted troth 

again, 
Still watches round its grave the unlaid 

ghost 
Of a dead virtue, and makes other hopes, 
Save that implacable one, seem thin and 

bleak 
As shadows of bare trees upon the snow, 
Bound freezing there by the unpitying 

moon. ) 

While other youths perplexed their man- 
dolins, 
Praying that Thetis would her fingers 

twine 
In the loose glories of her lover's hair, 
And wile another kiss to keep back day, 
I, stretched beneath the many-centuried 

shade 
Of some writhed oak, the wood's Lao- 
coon, 
Did of my hope a dryad mistress make, 
Whom I would woo to meet me privily, 
Or underneath the stars, or when the 

moon 
Flecked all the forest floor with scattered 
pearls.") 

days whose memory tames to fawning 

down 
The surly fell of Ocean's bristled neck ! 

1 know not when this hope enthralled 

me first, 
But from my boyhood up I loved to hear 
The tall pine-forests of the Apennine 
Murmur their hoary legends of the sea, 
Which hearing, I in vision clear beheld 
The sudden dark of tropic night shut 

down 
O'er the huge whisper of great watery 

wastes, 
The while a pair of herons trailingly 



COLUMBUS. 



59 



1 



Flapped inland, where some league-wide 

river hurled 
The yellow spoil of unconjectured realms 
Far through a gulfs green silence, never 

scarred 
By any but the North-wind's hurrying 

keels. 
And not the pines alone ; all sights and 

sounds 
To my world-seeking heart paid fealty, 
And catered for it as the Cretan bees 
Brought honey to the baby Jupiter, 
Who in his soft hand crushed a violet, 
Godlike foremusing the rough thunder's 

gripe ; 
Then did I entertain the poet's song, 
My great Idea's guest, and, passing o'er 
That iron bridge the Tuscan built to hell, 
I heard Ulysses tell of mountain-chains 
Whose adamantine links, his manacles, 
The western main shook growling, and 

still gnawed. 
I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale 
Of happy Atlantis, and heard Bjorne's 

keel 
Crunch the gray pebbles of the Yinland 

shore : j 

For I believed the poets ; it is they 
Who utter wisdom from the central deep, 
And, listening to the inner flow of things, 
Speak to the age out of eternity.} 

Ah me ! old hermits sought for solitude 
In caves and desert places of the earth, 
Where their own heart-beat was the only 

stir 
Of living thing that comforted the year ; 
% But the bald pillar-top of Simeon, 
In midnight's blankest waste, were pop- 
ulous, 
Matched with the isolation drear and 

deep 
Of him who pines among the swarm of 

men, 
At once a new thought's king and pris- 
oner, 
Feeling the truer life within his life, 
The fountain of his spirit's prophecy, 
Sinking away and wasting, drop by drop, 
In the ungrateful sands of sceptic ears.) 
(He in the palace-aisles of untrod woods 
Doth walk a king ; for him the pent-up 

cell 
Widens beyond the circles of the stars, 
And all the sceptred spirits of the past 
Come thronging in to greet him as their 
peer; 



But in the market-place's glare and 
throng 

He sits apart, an exile, and his brow 

Aches with the mocking memory of its 
crown.^ 

But to the spirit select there is no choice ; 

He cannot say, This will I do, or that, 

For the cheap means putting Heaven's 
ends in pawn, 

And bartering his bleak rocks, the free- 
hold stern 

Of destiny's first-born, for smoother fields 

That yield no crop of self-denying will ; 

(A hand is stretched to him from out the 
dark, 

Which grasping without question, he is 
led 

Where there is work that he must do for 
God.) 

(The trial still is the strength's comple- 
ment, 

And the uncertain, dizzy path that scales 

The sheer heights of supremest purposes 

Is steeper to the angel than the child?) 

Chances have laws as fixed as planets 
have, 

And disappointment's dry and bitter 
root, 

Envy's harsh berries, and the choking 
pool 

Of the world's scorn, are the right 
mother-milk 

To the tough hearts that pioneer their 
kind, 

And break a pathway to those unknown 
realms 

That in the earth's broad shadow lie 

, enthralled ; 

'Endurance is the crowning quality, 

And patience all the passion of great 
hearts ; ) 

These are their stay, and when the leaden 
world 

Sets its hard face against their fateful 
thought, 

And brute strength, like a scornful con- 
queror, 

Clangs his huge mace down in the other 
scale, 

The inspired soul but flings his patience 
in, 

And slowly that outweighs the ponderous 
globe, — 

One faith against a whole earth's un- 
belief, 

One soul against the flesh of all man- 
kind. 



60 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Tims ever seems it when my soul can hear 
The voice that errs not ; then my tri- 
umph gleams, 
O'er the blank ocean beckoning, and all 

night 
My heart flies on before me as I sail ; 
Far on I see my lifelong enterprise, 
"Which rose like Ganges mid the freezing 

snows 
Of a world's solitude, sweep broadening 

down, 
And, gathering to itself a thousand 

streams, 
Grow sacred ere it mingle with the sea ; 
I see the ungated wall of chaos old, 
With blocks Cyclopean hewn of solid 

night, 

Fade like a wreath of unreturning mist 

Before the irreversible feet of light ; — 

And lo, with what clear omen in the east 

f On day's gray threshold stands the eager 

dawn, 
Like young Leander rosy from the sea 
Glowing at Hero's lattice ! } 

One day more 
These muttering shoalbrains leave the 

helm to me : 
God, let me not in their dull ooze be 

stranded ; 
Let not this one frail bark, to hollow 

which 
I have dug out the pith and sinewy heart 
Of my aspiring life's fair trunk, be so 
Cast up to warp and blacken in the sun, 
Just as the opposing wind 'gins whistle 

off 
His cheek-swollen pack, and from the 

leaning mast 
Fortune's full sail strains forward ! 

One poor day! — 
Remember whose and not how short it 

is! 
It is God's day, it is Columbus's. 
A lavish day! One day, with life and 

heart, 
Is more than time enough to find a world. 

1844. 



AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT 
HAMBURG. 

The tower of old Saint Nicholas soared 

upward to the skies, 
Like some huge piece of Nature's make, 

the growth of centuries ; 



You could not deem its crowding spires 

a work of human art, 
They seemed to struggle lightward from 

a sturdy living heart. 

Not Nature's self more freely speaks in 

crystal or in oak, 
Than, through the pious builder's hand, 

in that gray pile she spoke ; 
And as from acorn springs the oak, so, 

freely and alone, 
Sprang from his heart this hymn to God, 

sung in obedient stone. 

It seemed a wondrous freak of chance, so 

perfect, yet so rough, 
A whim of Nature crystallized slowly in 

granite tough ; 
The thick spires yearned towards the sky 

in quaint harmonious lines, 
And in broad sunlight basked and slept, 

like a grove of blasted pines. 

Never did rock or stream or tree lay claim 

with better right 
To all the adorning sympathies of shadow 

and of light ; 
And, in that forest petrified, as forester 

there dwells 
Stout Herman, the old sacristan, sole 

lord of all its bells. , 

Surge leaping after surge, the fire roared 
onward red as blood, 

Till half of Hamburg lay engulfed be- 
neath the eddying flood ; 

For miles away the fiery spray poured 
down its deadly rain, 

And back and forth the billows sucked, 
and paused, and burst again. 

From square to square with tiger leaps 

panted the lustful fire, 
The air to leeward shuddered with the I 

gasps of its desire ; 
And church and palace, which even now 

stood whelmed but to the knee, 
Lift their black roofs like breakers lone 

amid the whirling sea. 

Up in his tower old Herman sat and 
watched with quiet look ; 

His soul had trusted God too long to be i 
at last forsook ; 

He could not fear, for surely God a path- 
way would unfold 

Through this red sea for faithful hearts, 
as once he did of old. 



THE SOWER. — HUNGER AND COLD. 



61 



But scarcely can he cross himself, or on 

his good saint call, 
Before the sacrilegious flood o'erleaped 

the churchyard wall ; 
And, ere & pater half was said, mid smoke 

and crackling glare, 
His island tower scarce juts its head 

above the wide despair. 

Upon the peril's desperate peak his heart 
stood up sublime ; 

His first thought was for God above, his 
next was for his chime ; 

" Sing now and make your voices heard 
in hymns of praise," cried he, 

" As did the Israelites of old, safe walk- 
ing through the sea ! 

" Through this red sea our God hath 

made the pathway safe to shore ; 
Our promised land stands full in sight ; 

shout now as ne'er before ! " 
And as the tower came crushing down, 

the bells, in clear accord, 
Pealed forth the grand old German 

hymn, — ' ' All good souls, praise 

the Lord ! " 



THE SOWER. 

I saw a Sower walking slow 
Across the earth, from east to west ; 
His hair was white as mountain snow, 
His head drooped forward on his breast. 

With shrivelled hands he flung his seed, 
Nor ever turned to look behind ; 
Of sight or sound he took no heed ; 
It seemed he was both deaf and blind. 

His dim face showed no soul beneath, 
Yet in my heart I felt a stir, 
As if I looked upon the sheath 
That once had clasped Excalibur. 

I heard, as still the seed he cast, 
How, crooning to himself, he sung, 
" I sow again the holy Past, 
The happy days when I was young. 

1 Then all was wheat without a tare, 
Then all was righteous, fair, and true ; 
And I am he whose thoughtful care 
Shall plant the Old World in the New. 

"The fruitful germs I scatter free, 
With busy hand, while all men sleep ; 



In Europe now, from sea to sea, 
The nations bless me as they reap." 

Then I looked back along his path, 
And heard the clash of steel on steel, 
Where man faced man, in deadly wrath, 
While clanged the tocsin's hurrying peal. 

The sky with burning towns flared red, 
Nearer the noise of fighting rolled, 
And brothers' blood, by brothers shed, 
Crept curdling over pavements cold. 

Then marked I how each germ of truth 
Which through the dotard's fingers ran 
Was mated with a dragon's tooth 
Whence there sprang up an armed man. 

I shouted, but he could not hear ; 
Made signs, but these he could not see ; 
And still, without a doubt or fear, 
Broadcast he scattered anarchy. 

Long to my straining ears the blast 
Brought faintly back the words he 

sung : 
* * I sow again the holy Past, 
The happy days when I was young.'' 



HUNGER AND COLD. 

Sisters two, all praise to you, 
With your faces pinched and blue ; 
To the poor man you Ve been true 

From of old : 
You can speak the keenest word, 
You are sure of being heard, 
From the point you 're never stirred, 

Hunger and Cold ! 

Let sleek statesmen temporize ; 
Palsied are their shifts and lies 
When they meet your bloodshot eyes, 

Grim and bold ; 
Policy you set at naught, 
In their traps you '11 not be caught, 
You 're too honest to be bought, 

Hunger and Cold ! 

Bolt and bar the palace door ; 
While the mass of men are poor, 
Naked truth grows more and more 

Uncontrolled ; 
You had never yet, I guess, 
Any praise for bashfulness, 
You can visit sans court-dress. 

Hunger and Cold ! 



62 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



While the music fell and rose, 
And the dance reeled to its close, 
Where her round of costly woes 

Fashion strolled, 
I beheld with shuddering fear 
Wolves' eyes through the windows peer ; 
Little dream they you are near, 

Hunger and Cold ! 

When the toiler's heart you clutch, 
Conscience is not valued much, 
He recks not a bloody smutch 

On his gold : 
Everything to you defers, 
You are potent reason ers, 
At your whisper Treason stirs, 

Hunger and Cold ! 

Eude comparisons you draw, 
Words refuse to sate your maw, 
Your gaunt limbs the cobweb law 

Cannot hold : 
You 're not clogged with foolish pride, 
But can seize a right denied : 
Somehow God is on your side, 

Hunger and Cold ! 

You respect no hoary wrong 
More for having triumphed long ; 
Its past victims, haggard throng, 

From the mould 
You unbury : swords and spears 
Weaker are than poor men's tears, 
Weaker than your silent years, 

Hunger and Cold ! 

Let them guard both hall and bower ; 
Through the window you will glower, 
Patient till your reckoning hour 

Shall be tolled ; 
Cheeks are pale, but hands are red, 
G uiltless blood may chance be shed, 
But ye must and will be fed, 

Hunger and Cold ! 

God has plans man must not spoil, 
Some were made to starve and toil, 
Some to share the wine and oil, 

We are told: 
Devil's theories are these, 
Stifling hope and love and peace, 
Framed your hideous lusts to please, 

Hunger and Cold ! 

Scatter ashes on thy head, 
Tears of burning sorrow shed, 



Earth ! and be by Pity led 

To Love's fold ; 
Ere they block the very door 
With lean corpses of the poor, 
And will hush for naught but gore, 

Hunger and Cold ! 

1844. 



THE LANDLORD. 

What boot your houses and your lands? 

In spite of close-drawn deed and fence, 
Like water, 'twixt your cheated hands, 
They slip into the graveyard's sands, 

And mock your ownership's pretence. 

How shall you speak to urge your right, 
Choked with that soil for which you 
lust? 
The bit of clay, for whose delight 
You grasp, is mortgaged, too ; Death 
might 
Foreclose this very day in dust. 

Fence as you please, this plain poor 
man, 

Whose only fields are in his wit, 
Who shapes the world, as best he~ can, 
According to God's higher plan, 

Owns you, and fences as is fit. 

Though yours the rents, his incomes 
wax 

By right of eminent domain ; 
From factory tall to woodman's axe, 
All things on earth must pay their tax, 

To feed his hungry heart and brain. 

He takes you from your easy- chair, 
And what he plans that you must 
do; 
You sleep in down, eat dainty fare, — ■ 
He mounts his crazy garret-stair 
And starves, the landlord over you. 

Feeding the clods your idlesse drains, 

You make more green six feet of soil ; 
His fruitful word, like suns and rains, 
Partakes the seasons' bounteous pains, 
And toils to lighten human toil. 

Your lands; with force or cunning got, 
Shrink to the measure of the grave ; 
But Death himself abridges not 
The tenures of almighty thought, 
The titles of the wise and brave. 



TO A PINE-TREE. SI DESCENDERO IN INFERNUM, ADES. 

TO A PINE-TREE. 



63 



Far up on Katahdiu thou towerest, 
Purple-blue with the distance and 
vast; 
Like a cloud o'er the lowlands thou 
lowerest, 
That hangs poised on a lull in the 
blast, 
To its fall leaning awful. 

In the storm, like a prophet o'ermad- 
dened, 
Thou singest and tossest thy branches ; 
Thy heart with the terror is gladdened, 
Thou forebodest the dread avalanches, 
When whole mountains swoop vale- 
ward. 

In the calm thou o'erstretchest the val- 
leys ^ 
"With thine arms, as if blessings im- 
ploring, 
Like an old king led forth from his pal- 
ace, 
When his people to battle are pouring 
From the city beneath him. 

To the lumberer asleep 'neath thy gloom- 
ing 
Thou dost sing of wild billows in mo- 
tion, 
Till he longs to be swung mid their boom- 
ing 
In the tents of the Arabs of ocean, 
Whose finned isles are their cattle. 

For the gale snatches thee for his lyre, 
With mad hand crashing melody 
frantic, 
While he pours forth his mighty de- 
sire 
To leap down on the eager Atlantic, 
Whose arms stretch to his play- 
mate. 

The wild storm makes his lair in thy 
branches, 
Preying thence on the continent un- 
der ; 
Like a lion, crouched close on his 
haunches, 
There awaiteth his leap the fierce 
thunder, 
Growling low with impatience. 



Spite of winter, thou keep'st thy green 
glory, 

Lusty father of Titans past number ! 
The snow-flakes alone make thee hoary, 
Nestling close to thy branches in 
slumber, 
And thee mantling with silence. 

Thou alone know'st the splendor of 
winter, 
Mid thy snow -silvered, hushed pre- 
cipices, 
Hearing crags of green ice groan and 
splinter, . 

And then plunge down the muffled 
abysses 
In the quiet of midnight. * 

Thou alone know'st the glory of summer, 
Gazing down on thy broad seas of 
forest, 
On thy subjects that send a proud mur- 
mur 
Up to thee, to their sachem, who tow- 
erest 
From thy bleak throne to heaven. 



SI DESCENDERO IN INFERNUM, ADES. 

0, wandering dim on the extremest 
edge 
Of God's bright providence, whose 
spirits sigh 
Drearily in you, like the winter sedge 
.That shivers o'er the dead pool stiff 

and dry, 
A thin, sad voice, when the bold wind 
roars by 
From the clear North of Duty, — 
Still by cracked arch and broken shaft I 

trace 
That here was once a shrine and holy 
place 
Of the supernal Beauty, — 
A child's play-altar reared of stones 

and moss, 
With wilted flowers for offering laid 
across, 
Mute recognition of the all-ruling Grace. 

How far are ye from the innocent, from 

those 
Whose hearts are as a little lane serene, 
Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with 

unbroke snows, 



64 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Or in the summer blithe with lamb- 
cropped green, 
Save the one track, where naught 
more rude is seen 
Than the plump wain at even 
Bringing home four months' sunshine 

bound in sheaves ! — \ 
How far are ye from those! yet who 
believes 
That ye can shut out heaven ? 
Your souls partake its influence, not 

in vain 
Nor all unconscious, as that silent lane 
Its drift of noiseless apple-blooms re- 



Looking within myself, I note how thin 
A plank of station, chance, or pros- 
perous fate, 
Doth fence me from the clutching waves 
of sin ; — 
In my own heart I find the worst 

man's mate, 
And see not dimly the smooth-hinged 
gate 
That opes to those abysses 
Where ye grope darkly, — ye who never 

knew 
On your young hearts love's consecrating 
dew, 
Or felt a mother's kisses, 
Or home's restraining tendrils round 

you curled ; 
Ah, side by side with heart's- ease in 
this world , 

The fatal nightshade grows and bitter rue ! 

One band ye cannot break, — the force 
that clips 
And grasps your circles to the central 
light; • 
Yours is the prodigal comet's long el- 
lipse, 
Self- exiled to the farthest verge of 

night; 
Yet strives with you no less that in- 
ward might 
No sin hath e'er imbruted ; 
The god in you the creed- dimmed eye 

eludes ; 
The Law brooks not to have its solitudes 
By bigot feet polluted; — 
Yet they who watch your God-com- 
pelled return 
May see your happy perihelion burn 
Where the calm sun his unfledged 
planets broods. 



TO THE PAST. 

Wondrous and awful are thy silent 
halls, 
kingdom of the past ! 
There lie the bygone ages in their palls, 
Guarded by shadows vast ; 
There all is hushed and breathless, 
Save when some image of old error falls 
Earth worshipped once as deathless. 

There sits drear Egypt, mid beleaguer- 
ing sands, 
Half woman and half beast, 
The burnt-out torch within her moul- 
dering hands 
That once lit all the East ; 
A dotard bleared and hoary, 
There Asser crouches o'er the blackened 
brands 
Of Asia's long-quenched glory. 

Still as a city buried 'neath the sea 
Thy courts and temples stand ; 
Idle as forms on wind-waved tapestry 
Of saints and heroes grand, 
Thy phantasms grope and shiver, 
Or watch the loose shores crumbling si- 
lently 
Into Time's gnawing river. 

Titanic shapes with faces blank and dun, 

Of their old godhead lorn, 
Gaze on the embers of the sunken sun, 
Which they misdeem for morn ; 
And yet the eternal sorrow 
In their unmonarched eyes says day is 
done 
Without the hope of morrow. 

realm of silence and of swart eclipse, 
The shapes that haunt thy gloom 
Make signs to us and move their with- 
ered lips 
Across the gulf of doom ; 
Yet all their sound and motion 
Bring no more freight to us than wraiths 
of ships 
On the mirage's ocean. 

And if sometimes a moaning wandereth 

From out thy desolate halls, 
If some grim shadow of thy living death 
Across our sunshine falls 
And scares the world to error, 
The eternal life sends forth melodious 
breath 
To chase the misty terror. 



TO THE FUTURE. 



65 



Thy mighty clamors, wars, and world- 
noised deeds 
Are silent now in dust, 
Gone like a tremble of the huddling 
reeds 
Beneath some sudden gust ; 
Thy forms and creeds have vanished, 
Tossed out to wither like unsightly weeds 
From the world's garden banished. 

Whatever of true life there was in thee 

Leaps in our age's veins ; 
Wield still thy bent and wrinkled em- 
pery, 
And shake thine idle chains ; — 
To thee thy dross is clinging, 
For us thy martyrs die, thy prophets see, 
Thy poets still are singing. 

Here, mid the bleak waves of our strife 
and care, 
Float the green Fortunate Isles 
Where all thy hero -spirits dwell, and 
share 
Our martyrdoms and toils ; 
The present moves attended 
With all of brave and excellent and fair 
That made the old time splendid. 



TO THE FUTURE. 

Land of Promise ! from what Pisgah's 

height 

Can I behold thy stretch of peaceful 

bowers, 

Thy golden harvests flowing out of sight, 

Thy nestled homes and sun-illumined 

towers ? 
Gazing upon the sunset's high-heaped 
gold, 
Its crags of opal and of chrysolite, 
Its deeps on deeps of glory, that un- 
fold 
Still brightening abysses, 
And blazing precipices, 
Whence but a scanty leap it seems to 
heaven,^ 
Sometimes a glimpse is given 
Of thy more gorgeous realm, thy more 
unstinted blisses. 

Land of Quiet ! to thy shore the surf 
Of the perturbed Present rolls and 

sleeps ; 
Our storms breathe soft as June upon 

thy turf 



And lure out blossoms ; to thy bosom 
leaps, 
As to a mother's, the o'erwearied heart, 
Hearing far off and dim the toiling 
mart, 
The hurrying feet, the curses without 
number, 
And, circled with the glow Elysian 
Of thine exulting vision, 
Out of its very cares wooes charms for 
peace and slumber. 

To thee the earth lifts up her fettered 
hands 
And cries for vengeance ; with a pity- 
ing smile 
Thou blessest her, and she forgets her 
bands, 
And her old woe-worn face a little 
while 
Grows young and noble ; unto thee the 
Oppressor 
Looks, and is dumb with awe ; 
The eternal law, 
Which makes the crime its own blind- 
fold redresser, 
Shadows his heart with perilous fore- 
boding, 
And he can see the grim-eyed Doom 
From out the trembling gloom 
Its silent-footed steeds towards his pal- 
ace goading. 



What promises hast thou for Poets' 
eyes, 
Aweary of the turmoil and the wrong ! 
To all their hopes what overjoyed re- 
plies ! 
What undreamed ecstasies for bliss- 
ful song ! 
Thy happy plains no war- trump's brawl- 
ing clangor 
Disturbs, and fools the poor to hate 
the poor ; 
The humble glares not on the high with 
anger ; 
Love leaves no grudge at less, no greed 
for more ; 
In vain strives Self the godlike sense to 
smother ; 
From the soul's deeps 
It throbs and leaps ; 
The noble 'neath foul rags beholds his 
long-lost brother. 



T 



To thee the Martyr looketh, and his 
fires 



66 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Unlock their fangs and leave his 
spirit free ; 
To thee the Poet mid his toil aspires, 
And grief and hunger climb about his 
knee, 
Welcome as children ; thou uph oldest 
The lone Inventor by his demon 
haunted' ; 
The Prophet cries to thee when hearts 
are coldest, 
And gazing o'er the midnight's 

bleak abyss, 
Sees the drowsed soul awaken at 
thy kiss, 
And stretch its happy arms and leap up 
disenchanted. ) 

Thou bringest vengeance, but so loving- 
kindly 
The guilty thinks it pity ; taught by 
thee, 
Fierce tyrants drop the scourges where- 
with blindly 
Their own souls they were scarring ; 
conquerors see 
With horror in their hands the accursed 
spear 
That tore the meek One's side on 
Calvary, 
And from their trophies shrink with 
ghastly fear ; 
Thou, too, art the Forgiver, 
The beauty of man's soul to man re- 
vealing ; 
The arrows from thy quiver 
Pierce Error's guilty heart, but only 
pierce for healing. 

0, whither, whither, glory-winged 
dreams, 
From out Life's sweat and turmoil 
would ye bear me ? 
Shut, gates of Fancy, on your golden 
gleams, — 
This agony of hopeless contrast spare 
me! 
Fade, cheating glow, and leave me to 
my night ! 
He is a coward, who would bor- 
row 
A charm against the present sorrow 
From the vague Future's promise of de- 

light: 
I As life's alarums nearer roll, 
The ancestral buckler calls, 
Self-clanging from the walls 
In the high temple of the soul ; 



Where are most sorrows, there the po- 
et's sphere is, 
To feed the soul with patience, 
To heal its desolations 
With words of unshorn truth, with love 
that never wearies.^ 



HEBE. 

I saw the twinkle of white feet, 
I saw the flash of robes descending ; 

Before her ran an influence fleet, 
That bowed my heart like barley bend- 
ing. 

As, in bare fields, the searching bees 
Pilot to blooms beyond our finding, 

It led me on, by sweet degrees 
Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding. 

Those Graces were that seemed grim 
Fates ; 
With nearer love the sky leaned o'er 
me; • 
The long-sought Secret's golden gates 
On musical hinges swung before me. 

I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp 
Thrilling with godhood ; like a lover 

I sprang the proffered life to clasp; — 
The beaker fell ; the luck was over. 

The Earth has drunk the vintage up ; 
What boots it patch the goblet's splin- 
ters ? 
Can Summer fill the icy cup, 
Whose treacherous crystal is but Win- 
ter's? 

spendthrift haste ! await the Gods ; 
Their nectar crowns the lips of Pa- i 
tience ; 

Haste scatters on unthankful sods 
The immortal gift in vain libations. 

Coy Hebe flies from those that woo, 
And shuns the hands would seize upon 
her; 

Follow thy life, and she will sue 
To pour for thee the cup of honor. 

THE SEARCH. 

I went to seek for Christ, 
And Nature seemed so fail- 
That first the woods and fields my youth 
enticed, 



THE PR. 



^TMMER REVERIE. 



69 



And I was sure to find him there : 
The temple I forsook, 
And to the solitude 
Allegiance paid ; but Winter came and 
shook 
The crown and purple from my 
wood; 
His snows, like desert sands, with scorn- 
ful drift, 
Besieged the -columned aisle and pal- 
ace-gate ; 
My Thebes, cut deep with many a sol- 
emn rift, 
But epitaphed her own sepulchred 
state : 
Then I remembered whom I went to seek, 
And blessed blunt Winter for his coun- 
sel bleak. 

Back to the world I turned, 
For Christ, I said, is King ; 
So the cramped alley and the hut I 
spurned, 
As far beneath his sojourning : 
Mid power and wealth I sought, 
But found no trace of him, 
And all the costly offerings I had 
brought 
With sudden rust and mould grew 
dim : 
I found his tomb, indeed, where, by 
their laws, 
All must on stated days themselves 
imprison, 
Mocking with bread a dead creed's grin- 
ning jaws, 
Witless how long the life had thence 
arisen ; 
Due sacrifice to this they set apart, 
Prizing it more than Christ's own living 
heart. 

So from my feet the dust 
Of the prond World I shook ; 
Then came dear Love and shared with 
me his crust, 
And half my sorrow's burden took. 
After the World's soft bed, 
Its rich and dainty fare, 
Like down seemed Love's coarse pillow 
to my head, 
His cheap food seemed as manna 
rare ; 
Fresh-trodden prints of bare and bleed- 
ing feet, 
Turned to the heedless city whence I 
came, 



Hau 

Vrore us gleam her camp-fires ! we 
G us h e( f elves must Pilgrims be, 

by tiM aynower > an( i steer boldly 
Love looked me 'in desperate winter sea, 

words, F uture's portal with 
But straight I knew '^ted key. 
were the Lord's. 

I followed where they led, 
And in a hovel rude, 
With naught to fence the weather from 
his head, 
The King I sought for meekly stood ; 
A naked, hungry child 
Clung round his gracious knee, 
And a poor hunted slave looked up and 
smiled 
To bless the smile that set him 
free; 
New miracles I saw his presence do, — 
No more I knew the hovel bare and 
poor, 
The gathered chips into a woodpile 
grew, 
The broken morsel swelled to goodly 
store ; 
I knelt and wept : my Christ no more 

I seek, 
His throne is with the outcast and the 
weak. 



THE PRESEOT CRISIS. 

When a deed is done for Freedom, 

through the broad earth's aching 

breast 
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling 

on from east to west, 
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feel? 

the soul within him climb 
To the awful verge of manhood, as the 

energy sublime 
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on 

the thorny stem of Time. 

Through the walls of hut and palace 

shoots the instantaneous throe. 
When the travail of the Ages wrings 

earth's systems to and fro ; 
At the birth of each new Era, with a 

recognizing start, 
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing 

with mute lips apart, 
And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child 

leaps beneath the Future's heart. 



66 



MISCELLANEO^* P0EMS - 



n , A'ltll 

Unlock their fangs and leave 

spirit free ; ., , the sense 

To thee the Poet mid his to' 

And grief and hunggf he C0W ers, feels 
knee, , with God 

Welcome as chafe ebbing earthward, to 
The lone K ^p by the sod, 

na Jrpse crawls round unburied, 
The Biving in the nobler clod. 

j^'or mankind are one in spirit, and an 

instinct bears along, 
Round the earth's electric circle, the 

swift flash of right or wrong ; 
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet 

Humanity's vast frame 
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels 

the gush of joy or shame ; — 
In the gain or loss of one race all the 

rest have equal claim. 

Once to every man and nation comes the 

moment to decide, 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, 

for the good or evil side ; 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, 

offering each the bloom or blight, 
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and 

the sheep upon the right, 
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt 

that darkness and that light. 

Hast thou chosen, my people, on 

whose party thou shalt stand, 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals 

shakes the dust against our land ? 
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 

't is Truth alone is strong, 
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I 

see around her throng 
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to en- 

shield her from all wrong. 

Backward look across the ages and the 

beacon -moments see, 
That, like peaks of some sunk continent, 

jut through Oblivion's sea ; 
Not an ear in court or market for the 

low foreboding cry 
Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, 

from whose feet earth's chaff must 

fly; 

Never shows the choice momentous till 
the judgment hath passed by. 

Careless seems the great Avenger ; his- 
tory's pages but record 



One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt 
old systems and the Word ; 

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong 
forever on the throne, — 

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, 
behind the dim unknown, 

Standeth God within the shadow, keep- 
ing watch above his own. 

We see dimly in the Present what is 

small and what is great, 
Slow of faith how weak an arm may 

turn the iron helm of fate, 
But the soul is still oracular ; amid the 

market's din, 
List the ominous stern whisper from the 

Delphic cave within, — 
"They enslave their children's children 

who make compromise with sin." 

Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest 
of the giant brood, 

Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who 
have drenched the earth with blood, 

Famished in his self-made desert, blind- 
ed by our purer day, 

Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his 
miserable prey ; — 

Shall we guide his gory fingers where 
our helpless children play ? 

Then to side with Truth is noble when 

we share her wretched crust, 
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 

't is prosperous to be just ; 
Then it is the brave man chooses, while 

the coward stands aside, 
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his 

Lord is crucified, 
And the multitude make virtue of the 

faith they had denied. 

Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes , — 

they were souls that stood alone, 
While the men they agonized for hurled 

the contumelious stone, 
Stood serene, and down the future saw 

the golden beam incline 
To the side of perfect justice, mastered 

by their faith divine, 
By one man's plain truth to manhood 

and to God's supreme design. 

By the light of burning heretics Christ's 

bleeding feet I track, 
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the 

cross that turns not back, 

K 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE. 



69 



And these mounts of anguish number 
how each generation learned 

One new word of that grand Credo which 
in prophet-hearts hath burned 

Since the first man stood God-conquered 
with his face to heaven upturned. 

For Humanity sweeps onward : where 

to-day the martyr stands, 
On the morrow crouches Judas with the 

silver in his hands ; 
Far in front the cross stands ready and 

the crackling fagots burn, 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in 

silent awe return 
To glean up the scattered ashes into 
i History's golden urn. 

'T is as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle 
slaves 

Of a legendary virtue carved upon our 
fathers' graves, 

Worshippers of light ancestral make the 
present light a crime ; — 

Was the Mayflower launched by cow- 
ards, steered by men behind their 
time ? 

Turn those tracks toward Past or Fu- 
ture, that make Plymouth Eock 
sublime ? 

They were men of present valor, stalwart 

old iconoclasts, 
Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all 

virtue was the Past's ; 
But we make their truth our falsehood, 

thinking that hath made us free, 
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, 

while our tender spirits flee 
The rude grasp of that great Impulse 

which drove them across the sea. 

They have rights who dare maintain 

them ; we are traitors to our sires, 
Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's 

new-lit altar- fires ; 
Shall we make their creed our jailer ? 

Shall we, in our haste to slay, 
From the tombs of the old prophets steal 

the funeral lamps away 
To light up the martyr-fagots round the 

prophets of to-day ? 

New occasions teach new duties ; Time 
makes ancient good uncouth ; 

They must upward still, and onward, 
who would keep abreast of Truth ; 



Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we 
ourselves must Pilgrims be, 

Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly 
through the desperate winter sea, 

Nor attempt the Future's portal with 
the Past's blood-rusted key. 
December, 1845. 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE. 

What visionary tints the year puts 
on, 
When falling leaves falter through 
motionless air 
Or numbly cling and shiver to be 
gone ! 
How shimmer the low flats and pas- 
tures bare, 
As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills 
The bowl between me and those dis- 
tant hills, 
And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, 
tremulous hair ! 

No more the landscape holds its 
wealth apart, 
Making me poorer in my poverty, 
But mingles with my senses and my 
heart ; 
My own projected spirit seems to me 
In her own reverie the world to 

steep ; 
'T is she that waves to sympathetic 
sleep, 
Moving, as she is moved, each field and 
hill and tree. 

How fuse and mix, with what un- 
felt degrees, 
Clasped by the faint horizon's languid 
arms, 
Each into each, the hazy distances ! 
The softened season all the landscape 
charms ; 
Those hills, my native village that 

embay, 
In waves of dreamier purple roll 
away, 
And floating in mirage seem all the 
glimmering farms. 

Far distant sounds the hidden chick- 
adee 
Close at my side ; far distant sound 
the leaves ; 
The fields seem fields of dream, 
where Memory 



70 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Wanders like gleaning Ruth ; and as 

the sheaves 
Of wheat and barley wavered in the 

eye 
Of Boaz as the maiden's glow went 

by, 

So tremble and seem remote all things 
the sense receives. 

The cock's shrill trump that tells 
of scattered corn, 
Passed breezily on by all his napping 
mates, 
Faint and more faint, from barn to 
barn is borne, 
Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's 
Straits ; 
Dimly I catch the throb of distant 

flails ; 
Silently overhead the hen-hawk 
sails, 
With watchful, measuring eye, and for 
his quarry waits. 

The sobered robin, hunger- silent 
now, 
Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn 
cheer ; 
The squirrel, on the shingly shag- 
bark's bough, 
Now saws, now lists with downward 
eye and ear, 
Then drops his nut, and, with a 

chipping bound, 
Whisks to his winding fastness 
underground ; 
The clouds like swans drift down the 
streaming atmosphere. 

O'er yon bare knoll the pointed 
cedar shadows 
Dnrwse on the crisp, gray moss ; the 
ploughman's call 
Creeps faint as smoke from black, 
fresh-furrowed meadows ; 
The single crow a single caw lets fall ; 
And all around me every bush and 

tree 
Says Autumn 's here, and Winter 
soon will be, 
Who snows his soft, white sleep and 
silence over all. 

The birch, most shy and ladylike 
of trees, 
Her poverty, as best she may, re- 
trieves, 



And hints at her foregone gentili- 
ties 
With some saved relics of her wealth 
of leaves ; 

The swamp- oak, with his royal pur- 
ple on, 

Glares red as blood across the sink- 
ing sun, 
As one who proudlier to a falling for- 
tune cleaves. 

He looks a sachem, in red blanket 
wrapt, 
Who, mid some council of the sad- 
garbed whites, 
Erect and stern, in his own memo- 
ries lapt, 
With distant eye broods over other 
sights, 
Sees the hushed wood the city's flare 

replace, 
The w r ounded turf heal o'er the rail- 
way's trace, 
And roams the savage Past of his un- 
dwindled rights. 

The red-oak, softer-grained, yields 
all for lost, 
And, with his crumpled foliage stiff 
and dry, 
After the first betrayal of the frost, 
Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky ; 
The chestnuts, lavish of their long- 
hid gold, 
To the faint Summer, beggared now 
and old, 
Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath 
her favoring eye. 

The ash her purple drops forgiv- 
ingly 
And sadly, breaking not the general 
hush ; 
The maple-swamps glow like a sun- 
set sea, 
Each leaf a ripple with its separate 
flush; 
All round the wood's edge creeps 

the skirting blaze 
Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy 
days, 
Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer 
burns his brush. 

O'er yon low wall, which guards 
one unkempt zone, 
Where vines and weeds and scrub- 
oaks intertwine 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE. 



71 



Safe from the plough, whose rough, 

discordant stone 
Is massed to one soft gray by lichens 

fine, 
The tangled blackberry, crossed and 

recrossed, weaves 
A prickly network of ensanguined 

leaves ; 
Hard by, with coral beads, the prim 

black-alders shine. 

Pillaring with name this crumbling 
boundary, 
Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the 
ploughboy's foot, 
Who, with each sense shut fast ex- 
cept the eye, 
Creeps close and scares the jay he 
hoped to shoot, 
The woodbine up the elm's straight 

stem aspires, 
Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal 
fires ; 
In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak 
stands mute. 

Below, the Charles — a stripe of 
nether sky, 
Now hid by rounded apple-trees be- 
tween, 
Whose gaps the misplaced sail 
sweeps bellying by, 
Now flickering golden through a wood- 
land screen, 
Then spreading out, at his next 

turn beyond, 
A silver circle like an inland pond — 
Slips seaward silently through marshes 
purple and green. 

Dear marshes ! vain to him the gift 
of sight 
Who cannot in their various incomes 
share, 
From every season drawn, of shad 3 
and light, 
Who sees in them but levels brown 
and bare ; 
Each change of storm or sunshine 

scatters free 
On them its largess of variety, 
For Nature with cheap means still works 
her wonders rare. 

In Spring they lie one broad expanse 
of green, 
O'er which the light winds run with 
glimmering feet : 



Here, yellower stripes track out the 
creek unseen, 
There, darker growths o'er hidden 
ditches meet ; 
And purpler stains show where the 

blossoms crowd, 
As if the silent shadow of a cloud 
Hung there becalmed, with the next 
breath to fleet. 

All round, upon the river's slippery 
edge, 
Witching to deeper calm the drowsy 
tide, 
Whispers and leans the breeze- 
entangling sedge ; 
Through emerald glooms the lingering 
waters slide, 
Or, sometimes wavering, throw back 

the sun, 
And the stiff banks in eddies melt 
and run 
Of dimpling light, and with the current 
seem to glide. 

In Summer 't is a blithesome sight 
to see, 
As, step by step, with measured swing, 
they pass, 
The wide-ranked mowers wading to 
the knee, 
Their sharp scythes panting through 
the thick-set grass ; 
Then, stretched beneath a rick's 

shade in a ring, 
Their nooning take, while one 
begins to sing 
A stave that droops and dies 'neath the 
close sky of brass. 

Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the 
bobolink, 
Remembering duty, in mid- quaver 
stops 
Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's 
tremulous brink, 
And 'twixt the winrows most demurely 
drops, 
A decorous bird of business, who 

provides 
For his brown mate and fledglings 
six besides, 
And looks from right to left, a farmer 
mid his crops. 

Another change subdues them in 
the Fall, 



72 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



But saddens not ; they still show mer- 
rier tints, 
Though sober russet seems to cover 
all; 
When the first sunshine through their 
dew-drops glints, 
Look how the yellow clearness, 

streamed across, 
Eedeems with rarer hues the season's 
loss, 
As Dawn's feet there had touched and 
left their rosy prints. 

Or come when sunset gives its fresh- 
ened zest, 
Lean o'er the bridge and let the ruddy 
thrill, 
While the shorn sun swells down 
the hazy west, 
Glow opposite; — the marshes drink 
their till 
And swoon with purple veins, then 

slowly fade 
Through pink to brown, as eastward 
moves the shade, 
Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Si- 
mond's darkening hill. 

Later, and yet ere Winter wholly 
shuts, 
Ere through the first dry snow the 
runner grates, 
And the loath cart-wheel screams in 
slippery ruts, 
While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, 
Trying each buckle and strap beside 

the fire, 
A.nd until bedtime plays with his 
desire, 
Twenty times putting on and off his new- 
bought skates ; — 

Then, every morn, the river's banks 
shine bright 
With smooth plate-armor, treacherous 
and frail, 
By the frost's clinking hammers 
forged at night, 
'Gainst which the lances of the sun 
prevail, 
Giving a pretty emblem of the 

day 
When guiltier arms in light shall 
melt away, 
And states shall move free-limbed, loosed 
from war's cramping mail. 



And now those waterfalls the ebb> 
ing river 
Twice every day creates on either 
side 
Tinkle, as through their fresh - 
sparred grots they shiver 
In grass -arched channels to the sun 
denied ; 
High flaps in sparkling blue the far- 

heard crow, 
The silvered flats gleam frostily be- 
low, 
Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the 
glassy tide. 

But crowned in turn by vying sea- 
sons three, 
Their winter halo hath a fuller ring ; 
This glory seems to rest immova- 

%,- 

The others were too fleet and vanish- 
ing; 
When the hid tide is at its highest 

flow, 
O'er marsh and stream one breath- 
less trance of snow 
With brooding fulness awes and hushes 
everything. 

The sunshine seems blown off by 
the bleak wind, 
As pale as formal candles lit by day ; 
Gropes to the sea the river dumb and 
blind ; 
The brown ricks, snow -thatched by 
the storm in play, 
Show pearly breakers combing o'er 

their lee, 
White crests as of some just en- 
chanted sea, 
Checked in their maddest leap and hang- 
ing poised midway. 

But when the eastern blow, with 
rain aslant, 
From mid- sea's prairies green and roll- 
ing plains 
Drives in his wallowing herds of bil- 
lows gaunt, 
And the roused Charles remembers in 
his veins 
Old Ocean's blood and snaps his 

gyves of frost, 
That tyrannous silence on the shores 
is tost 
In dreary wreck, and crumbling desola- 
tion reigns. 



AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 



73 



Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like de- 
vice, 
With leaden pools between or gullies 
bare, 
The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stone- 
henge of ice ; 
No life, no sound, to break the grim 
despair, 
Save sullen plunge, as through the 

sedges stiff 
Down crackles riverward some 
thaw-sapped cliff, 
Or when the close-wedged fields of ice 
crunch here and there. 

But let me turn from fancy-pic- 
tured scenes 
To that whose pastoral calm before me 
lies: 
Here nothing harsh or rugged inter- 
venes ; 
The early evening with her misty dyes 
Smooths off the ravelled edges of 

the nigh, 
Relieves the distant with her cooler 
sky, 
And tones the landscape down, and 
soothes the wearied eyes. 

There gleams my native village, dear 
to me, 
Though higher change's waves each 
day are seen, 
Whelming fields famed in boyhood's 
history, 
Sanding with houses the diminished 
green ; x 

There, in red brick, which soften- 
ing time defies, 
Stand square and stiff the Muses' 
factories ; — 
How with my life knit up is every well- 
known scene ! 

Flow on, dear river ! not alone you 
flow 
To outward sight, and through your 
marshes wind ; 
Fed from the mystic springs of long- 
ago, 
Your twin flows silent through my 
world of mind : 
Grow dim, dear marshes, in the 

evening's gray ! 
Before my inner sight ye stretch 
away, 
And will forever, though these fleshly 
eyes grow blind. 



Beyond the hillock's house-bespot- 
ted swell, 
Where Gothic chapels house the horse 
and chaise, 
Where quiet cits in Grecian tem- 
ples dwell, 
Where Coptic tombs resound with 
prayer and praise, 
Where dust and mud the equal 

year divide, 
There gentle Allston lived, and 
wrought, and died, 
Transfiguring street and shop with his 
illumined gaze. 

Virgilium vidi tantum, — I have 
seen 
But as a boy. who looks alike on all, 
That misty hair, that fine Undine-like 
mien, 
Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest 
call ; — 
Ah, dear old homestead ! count it to 
thy fame 
That thither many times the Paint- 
er came ; — 
One elm yet bears his name, a feathery 
tree and tall. 

Swiftly the present fades in mem- 
ory's glow, — 
Our only sure possession is the past ; 
The village blacksmith died a 
month ago, 
And dim to me the forge's roaring 
blast ; 
Soon fire-new mediaevals we shall 

see 
Oust the black smithy from its chest- 
nut-tree, 
And that hewn down, perhaps, the bee- 
hive green and vast. 

How many times, prouder than 
king on throne, 
Loosed from the village school-dame's 
A's and B's, 
Panting have I the creaky bellows 
blown, 
And watched the pent volcano's red 
increase, 
Then paused to see the ponderous 

sledge, brought down 
By that hard arm voluminous and 
brown, 
From the white iron swarm its golden 
vanishing bees. 



74 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Dear native town! whose choking 
elms each j^ear 
"With eddying dust before their time 
turn gray, 
Pining for rain, — to me thy dust is 
dear ; 
It glorifies the eve of summer day, 
And when the westering sun half 

sunken burns, 
The mote-thick air to deepest orange 
turns, 
The westward horseman rides through 
clouds of gold away, 

So palpable, I 've seen those unshorn 
few, 
The six old willows at the causey's 
end 
(Such trees Paul Potter never 
dreamed nor drew), 
Through this dry mist their checker- 
ing shadows send, 
Striped, here and there, with many 

a long-drawn thread, 
Where streamed through leafy 
chinks the trembling red, 
Past which, in one bright trail, the 
hangbird's flashes blend. 

Yes, dearer far thy dust than all 
that e'er, 
Beneath the awarded crown of victory, 
Gilded the blown Olympic chariot- 
eer; 
Though lightly prized the ribboned 
parchments three, 
Yet collegisse juvat, I am glad 
That here what colleging was mine 
I had,— 
It linked another tie, dear native town, 
with thee ! 

Nearer art thou than simply native 
earth, 
My dust with thine concedes a deeper 
tie; 
A closer claim thy soil may well put 
forth, 
Something of kindred more than sym- 
pathy ; 
For in thy bounds I reverently laid 

away 
That blinding anguish of forsaken 
clay, 
That title I seemed to have in earth and 
sea and sky. 



That portion of my life more choice 
to me 
(Though brief, yet in itself so round 
and whole) 
Than all the imperfect residue can 
be; — 
The Artist saw his statue of the soul 
"Was perfect ; so, with one regretful 

stroke, 
The earthen model into fragments 
broke, 
And without her the impoverished sea- 
sons roll. 



THE GROWTH OF THE LEGEND. 

A FRAGMENT. 

A legend that grew in the forest's 

hush 
Slowly as tear-drops gather and gush, 
When a word some poet chanced to 

say 
Ages ago, in his careless way, 
Brings our youth back to us out of its 

shroud 
Clearly as under yon thunder-cloud 
I see that white sea-gull. It grew and 

grew, 
From the pine-trees gathering a sombre 

hue, 
Till it seems a mere murmur out of the 

vast 
Norwegian forests of the past ; 
And it grew itself like a true Northern 

pine, 
First a little slender line, 
Like a mermaid's green eyelash, and then 

anon 
A stem that a tower might rest upon. 
Standing spear-straight in the waist- 
deep moss, 
Its bony roots clutching around and 

across, 
As if they would tear up earth's heart 

in their grasp 
Ere the storm should uproot them or 

make them unclasp ; 
Its cloudy boughs singing, as suiteth the 

pine, 
To shrunk snow-bearded sea-kings old 

songs of the brine, 
Till they straightened and let their 

staves fall to the floor, 
Hearing waves moan again on the per- 
ilous shore 



THE GROWTH OF THE LEGEND. 



75 



Of Vinland, perhaps, while their prow 

groped its way 
'Twixt the frothed gnashing tusks of 

some ship-crunching bay. 

So, pine -like, the legend grew, strong- 
limbed and tall, 

As the Gypsy child grows that eats crusts 
in the hall ; 

It sucked the whole strength of the 
earth and the sky, 

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, all 
brought it supply ; 

'T was a natural growth, and stood fear- 
lessly there, 

True part of the landscape as sea, land, 
and air ; 

For it grew in good times, ere the fash- 
ion it was 

To force these wild births of the woods 
under glass, 

And so, if 't is told as it should be told, 

Though 't were sung under Venice's 
moonlight of gold, 

You would hear the old voice of its 
mother, the pine, 

Murmur sealike and northern through 
every line, 

And the verses should grow, self-sus- 
tained and free, 

Round the vibrating stem of the melody, 

Like the lithe moonlit limbs of the 
parent tree. 

Yes, the pine is the mother of legends ; 

what food 
For their grim roots is left when the 

thousand-yeared wood, 
The dim-aisled cathedral, whose tall 

arches spring 
Light, sinewy, graceful, firm-set as the 

wing 
From Michael's white shoulder, is hewn 

and defaced 
By iconoclast axes in desperate waste, 
And its wrecks seek the ocean it proph- 
esied long, 
Cassandra-like, crooning its mystical 

song ? 
Then the legends go with them, — even 

yet on the sea 
A wild virtue is left in the touch of the 

tree, 
And the sailor's night - watches are 

thrilled to the core 
With the lineal offspring of Odin and 

Thor. 



Yes, wherever the pine-wood has never 
let in, 

Since the day of creation, the light and 
the din 

Of manifold life, but has safely con- 
veyed 

From the midnight primeval its armful 
of shade, 

And has kept the weird Past with its 
sagas alive 

Mid the hum and the stir of To-day's 
busy hive, 

There the legend takes root in the age- 
gathered gloom, 

And its murmurous boughs for their 
sagas find room. 

Where Aroostook, far-heard, seems to 
sob as he goes 

Groping down to the sea 'neath his 
mountainous snows ; 

Where the lake's frore Sahara of never- 
tracked white, 

When the crack shoots across it, com- 
plains to the night 

With a long, lonely moan, that leagues 
northward is lost, 

As the ice shrinks away from the tread 
of the frost ; 

Where the lumberers sit by the log-fires 
that throw 

Their own threatening shadows far round 
o'er the snow, 

When the wolf howls aloof, and the 
wavering glare 

Flashes out from the blackness the eyes 
of the bear, 

When the wood's huge recesses, half- 
lighted, supply 

A canvas where Fancy her mad brush 
> may try, 

Blotting in giant Horrors that venture 
not down 

Through the right-angled streets of the 
brisk, whitewashed town, 

But skulk in the depths of the measure- 
less w T ood 

Mid the Dark's creeping whispers that 
curdle the blood, 

When the eye, glanced in dread o'er the 
shoulder, may dream, 

Ere it shrinks to the camp-fire's compan- 
ioning gleam, 

That it saw the fierce ghost of the Red 
Man crouch back 

To the shroud of the tree-trunk's invin- 
cible black ; — 



76 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



There the old shapes crowd thick round 
the pine-shadowed camp, 

Which shun the keen gleam of the schol- 
arly lamp, 

And the seed of the legend finds true 
Norland ground, 

"While the border-tale 's told and the 
canteen Hits round. 



A CONTRAST. 

Thy love thou sentest oft to me, 
And still as oft I thrust it back ; 

Thy messengers I could not see 
In those who everything did lack, 
The poor, the outcast, and the black. 

Pride held his hand before mine eyes, 
The world with flattery stulfed mine 
ears ; 
I looked to see a monarch's guise, 
Nor dreamed thy love would knock 

for years, 
Poor, naked, fettered, full of tears. 

Yet, when I sent my love to thee, 
Thou with a smile didst take it in, 

And entertain'dst it royally, 

Though grimed with earth, with hun- 
ger thin, 
And leprous with the taint of sin. 

Now every day thy love I meet, 
As o'er the earth it wanders wide, 

With weary step and bleeding feet, 
Still knocking at the heart of pride 
And offering grace, though still de- 
nied. 

EXTREME TJNCTION. 

Go! leave me, Priest; my soul would 
be 
Alone with the consoler, Death ; 
Far sadder eyes than thine will see 
This crumbling clay yield up its 
breath ; 
These shrivelled hands have deeper stains 

Than holy oil can cleanse away, 
Hands that have plucked the world's 
coarse gains 
As erst they plucked the flowers of 
May. 

Call, if thou canst, to these gray eyes 
Some faith from youth's traditions 
wrung; 



This fruitless husk which dustward dries 
Has been a heart once, has been young ; 

On this bowed head the awful Past 
Once laid its consecrating hands ; 

The Future in its purpose vast 

Paused, waiting my supreme com- 
mands. 

But look ! whose shadows block the 
door? 
Who are those two that stand aloof? 
See ! on my hands this freshening gore 
Writes o'er again its crimson proof ! 
My looked-for death-bed guests are 
met; 
There my dead Youth doth wring its 
hands, 
And there, with eyes that goad me yet, 
The ghost of my Ideal stands ! 

God bends from out the deep and says, 

" I gave thee the great gift of life ; 
Wast thou not called in many ways ? 

Are not my earth and heaven at strife ? 
I gave thee of my seed to sow, 

Bringest thou me my hundred-fold?" 
Can I look up with face aglow, 

And answer, ''Father, here is gold" ? 

I have been innocent ; God knows 

When first this wasted life began, 
Not grape with grape more kindly grows, 

Than I with every brother-man : 
Now here I gasp; what lose my kind, 

When this fast ebbing breath shall 
part ? 
What bands of love and service bind 

This being to the world's sad heart ? 

Christ still was wandering o'er the earth 

Without a place to lay his head ; 
He found free welcome at my hearth, 

He shared my cup and broke my 
bread : 
Now, when I hear those steps sublime, 

That bring the other world to this, 
My snake-turned nature, sunk in slime, 

Starts sideway with defiant hiss. 

Upon the hour when I was born, 
God said, "Another man shall be," 

And the great Maker did not scorn 
Out of himself to fashion me ; 

He sunned me with his ripening looks, 
And Heaven's rich instincts in me 
grew, 



THE OAK. 



77 



As effortless as woodland nooks 

Send violets up and paint them blue. 

Yes, I who now, with angry tears, 

Am exiled back to brutish clod, 
Have borne unquenched for fourscore 
years 

A spark of the eternal God ; 
And to what end ? How yield I back 

The trust for such high uses given ? 
Heaven's light hath but revealed a track 

Whereby to crawl away from heaven. 

Men think it is an awful sight 

To see a soul just set adrift 
On that drear voyage from whose night 

The ominous shadows never lift ; 
But 't is more awful to behold 

A helpless infant newly born, 
Whose little hands unconscious hold 

The keys of darkness and of morn. 

Mine held them once ; I flung away 

Those keys that might have open set 
The golden sluices of the day, 

But clutch the keys of darkness yet ; 
I hear the reapers singing go 

Into God's harvest ; I, that might 
With them have chosen, here below 

Grope shuddering at the gates of night. 

glorious Youth, that once wast mine ! 

O high Ideal ! all in vain 
Ye enter at this ruined shrine 

Whence worship n^.'er shall rise again ; 
The bat and owl inhabit here, 

The snake nests in the altar-stone, 
The sacred vessels moulder near, 

The image of the God is gone. 



THE OAK. 

What gnarled stretch, what depth of 
shade, is his ! 
There needs no crown to mark the 
forest's king ; 
How in his leaves outshines full sum- 
mer's bliss ! 
Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their 
tribute bring, 
Which he with such benignant royalty 
Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent ; 
All nature seems his vassal proud to be, 
And cunning only for his ornament. 



How towers he, too, amid the billowed 
snows, 
An unquelled exile from the summer's 
throne, 
Whose plain, un cinctured front more 
kingly shows, 
Now that the obscuring courtier leaves 
are flown. 
His boughs make music of the winter 
air, 
Jewelled with sleet, like some cathe- 
dral front 
Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint 
art repair 
The dints and furrows of time's en- 
vious brunt. 

How doth his patient strength the rude 
March wind 
Persuade to seem glad breaths of sum- 
mer breeze, 
And win the soil that fain would be 
unkind, 
To swell his revenues with proud in- 
crease ! 
He is the gem; and all the landscape 
wide 
(So doth his grandeur isolate the 
sense) 
Seems but the setting, worthless all be- 
side, 
An empty socket, were he fallen 
thence. 

So, from oft converse with life's wintry 
gales, 
Should man learn how to clasp with 
tougher roots 
The inspiring earth; how otherwise 
avails 
The leaf- creating sap that sunward 
shoots ? 
So everv year that falls with noiseless 
flake 
Should fill old scars up on the storm- 
ward side, 
And make hoar age revered for age's 
sake, 
Not for traditions of youth's leafy 
pride. 

So, from the pinched soil of a churlish 
fate, 
True hearts compel the sap of stur- 
dier growth, 

So between earth and heaven stand sim- 
ply great, 



78 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



That these shall seem but their at- 
tendants both ; 
For nature's forces with obedient zeal 
"Wait on the rooted faith and oaken 
will; 
As quickly the pretender's cheat they 
feel, 
And turn mad Pucks to flout and 
mock him still. 

Lord! all thy works are lessons; each 
contains 
Some emblem of man's all-containing 
soul; 
Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious 
pains, 
Delving within thy grace an eyeless 
mole ? 
Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove, 
Cause me some message of thy truth 
to bring, 
Speak but a word through me, nor let 
thy love 
Among my boughs disdain to perch 
and sine:. 



AMBROSE. 

Never, surely, was holier man 

Than Ambrose, since the world began ; 

With diet spare and raiment thin 

He shielded himself from the father of 

sin; 
With bed of iron and scourgings oft, 
His heart to God's hand as wax made 

soft. 

Through earnest prayer and watchings 

long 
He sought to know 'tween right and 

wrong, 
Much wrestling with the blessed Word 
To make it yield the sense of the Lord, 
That he might build a storm-proof creed 
To fold the flock in at their need. 

At last he builded a perfect faith, 
Fenced round about with The Lord thus 

saith ; 
To himself he fitted the doorway's size, 
Meted the light to the need of his eyes, 
And knew, by a sure and inward sign, 
That the work of his fingers was divine. 

Then Ambrose said, "All those shall die 
The eternal death who believe not as I " ; 
And some were boiled, some burned in fire, 



Some sawn in twain, that his heart's 

desire, 
For the good of men's souls, might be 

satisfied 
By the drawing of all to the righteous 

side. 

One day, as Ambrose was seeking the 

truth 
In his lonely walk, he saw a youth 
Resting himself in the shade of a tree ; 
It had never been granted him to see 
So shining a face, and the good man 

thought 
'Twere pity he should not believe as he 

ought. 

So he set himself by the young man's 
side, 

And the state of his soul with questions 
tried ; 

But the heart of the stranger was hard- 
ened indeed, 

Nor received the stamp of the one true 
creed ; 

And the spirit of Ambrose waxed sore to 
find 

Such face the porch of so narrow a mind. 

" As each beholds in cloud and fire 
The shape that answers his own desire, 
So each," said the youth, "in the Law 

shall find 
The figure and features of his mind ; 
And to each in his mercy hath God 

allowed 
His several pillar of fire and cloud." 

The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal 
And holy wrath for the young man's 

weal : 
"Believest thou then, most wretched 

youth," 
Cried he, "a dividual essence in Truth? 
I fear me thy heart is too cramped with sin 
To take the Lord in his glory in." 

Now there bubbled beside them where 

they stood 
A fountain of waters sweet and good ; 
The youth to the streamlet's brink drew 

near 
Saying, "Ambrose, thou maker of 

creeds, look here!" 
Six vases of crystal then he took, 
And set them along the edge of the 

brook. 



ABOVE AND BELOW.- 



THE CAPTIVE. 



79 



" As into these vessels the water I pour, 
There shall one hold less, another more, 
And the water unchanged, in every case, 
Shall put on the figure of the vase ; 
thou, who wouldst unity make through 

strife, 
Canst thou fit this sign to the* Water of 

Life ?" 

When Ambrose looked up, he stood alone, 
The youth and the stream and the vases 

were gone ; 
But he knew, by a sense of humbled 

grace, 
He had talked with an angel face to face, 
And felt his heart change inwardly, 
As he fell on his knees beneath the tree. 



ABOVE AND BELOW. 



dwellers in the valley -land, 

Who in deep twilight grope and 
cower, 
Till the slow mountain's dial-hand 

Shortens to noon's triumphal hour, 
While ye sit idle, do ye think 

The Lord's great work sits idle too ? 
That light dare not o'erleap the brink 

Of morn, because 't is dark with you ? 

Though yet your valleys skulk in night, 

In God's ripe fields the day is cried, 
Amd reapers, with their sickles bright, 

Troop, singing, down the mountain- 
side : 
Come up, and feel what health there is 

In the frank Dawn's delighted eyes, 
As, bending with a pitying kiss, 

The night-shed tears of Earth she 
dries ! 

The Lord wants reapers : 0, mount up, 

Before night comes, and says, "Too 
late ! " 
Stay not for taking scrip or cup, 

The Master hungers while ye wait ; 
'T is from these heights alone your eyes 

The advancing spears of day can see, 
That o'er the eastern hill-tops rise, 

To break your long captivity. 



Lone watcher on the mountain -height, 
It is right precious to behold 

The first long surf of climbing light 
Flood all the thirsty east with gold ; 



But we, who in the shadow sit, 
Know also when the day is nigh, 

Seeing thy shining forehead lit 
With his inspiring prophecy. 

Thou hast thine office ; we have ours ; 

God lacks not early service here, 
But what are thine eleventh hours 

He counts with us for morning cheer ; 
Our day, for Him, is long enough, 

And when he giveth work to do, 
The bruised reed is amply tough 

To pierce the shield of error through. 

But not the less do thou aspire 

Light's earlier messages to preach ; 
Keep back no syllable of fire, 

Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech. 
Yet God deems not thine aeried sight 

More worthy than our twilight dim ; 
For meek Obedience, too, is Light, 

And following that is finding Him. 



THE CAPTIVE. 

It was past the hour of trysting, 
But she lingered for him still ; 

Like a child, the eager streamlet 
Leaped and laughed adown the hill, 

Happy to be free at twilight 
From its toiling at the mill. 

Then the great moon on a sudden 

Ominous, and red as blood, 
Startling as a new creation, 

O'er the eastern hill-top stood, 
Casting deep and deeper shadows 

Through the mystery of the wood. 

Dread closed huge and vague about her, 
And her thoughts turned fearfully 

To her heart, if there some shelter 
From the silence there might be, 

Like bare cedars leaning inland 
From the blighting of the sea. 

Yet he came not, and the stillness 
Dampened round her like a tomb ; 

She could feel cold eyes of spirits 
Looking on her through the gloom, 

She could hear the groping footsteps 
Of some blind, gigantic doom. 

Suddenly the silence wavered 
Like a light mist in the wind, 

For a voice broke gently through it, 
Felt like sunshine by the blind, 



80 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



And the dread, like mist in sunshine, 
Furled serenely from her mind. 

" Once my love, my love forever, 
Flesh or spirit still the same, 

If I missed the hour of try sting, 
Do not think my faith to blame ; 

I, alas, was made a captive, 
As from Holy Land I came. 

"Ona green spot in the desert, 
Gleaming like an emerald star, 

Where a palm-tree, in lone silence, 
Yearning for its mate afar, 

Droops above a silver runnel, 
Slender as a scimitar, 

' ' There thou 'It find the humble postern 

To the castle of my foe ; 
If thy love burn clear and faithful, 

Strike the gateway, green and low, 
Ask to enter, and the warder 

Surely will not say thee no." 

Slept again the aspen silence, 
But her loneliness was o'er ; 

Bound her heart a motherly patience 
Wrapt its arms fore verm ore ; 

From her soul ebbed back the sorrow, 
Leaving smooth the golden shore. 

Donned she now the pilgrim scallop, 
Took the pilgrim staff in hand ; 

Like a cloud-shade, flitting eastward, 
Wandered she o'er sea and land ; 

And her footsteps in the desert 
Fell like cool rain on the sand. 

Soon, beneath the palm-tree's shadow, 
Knelt she at the postern low ; 

And thereat she knock eth gently, 
Fearing much the warder's no ; 

All her heart stood still and listened, 
As the door swung backward slow. 

There she saw no surly warder 
With an eye like bolt and bar ; 

Through her soul a sense of music 
Throbbed, and, like a guardian Lar, 

On the threshold stood an angel, 
Bright and silent as a star. 

Fairest seemed he of God's seraphs, 

And her spirit, lily-wise, 
Blossomed when he turned upon her 

The deep welcome of his eyes, 
Sending upward to that sunlight 

All its dew for sacrifice. 



Then she heard a voice come onward 
Singing with a rapture new, 

As Eve heard the songs in Eden, 
Dropping earthward with the dew ; 

Well she knew the happy singer, 
Well the happy song she knew. 

Forward leaped she o'er the threshold, 

Eager as a glancing surf ; 
Fell from her the spirit's languor, 

Fell from her the body's scurf ; 
'Neath the palm next day some Arabs 

Found a corpse upon the turf. 

THE BIRCH-TREE. 

Rippling through thy branches goes 
the sunshine, 

Among thy leaves that palpitate for- 
ever ; 

Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had pris- 
oned, 

The soul once of some tremulous inland 
river, 

Quivering to tell her woe, but, ah ! 
dumb, dumb forever ! 

While all the forest, witched with slum- 
berous moonshine, 

Holds up its leaves in happy, happy 
silence, 

Waiting the dew, with breath and pulse 
suspended, 

I hear afar thy whispering, gleam y 
islands, 

And track thee wakeful still amid the 
wide- hung silence. 

Upon the brink of some wood-nestled 

lakelet, 
Thy foliage, like the tresses of a Diyad, 
Dripping about thy slim white stem, 

whose shadow 
Slopes quivering down the water's dusky 

quiet, 
Thou shrink'st as on her bath's edge 

would some startled Dryad. 

Thou art the go-between of rustic lovers ; 
Thy white bark has their secrets in its 

keeping ; 
Reuben writes here the happy name of 

Patience, 
And thy lithe boughs hang murmuring 

and weeping 
Above her, as she steals the mystery 

from thy keeping 



AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH. 



81 



Thou art to me like my beloved maiden, 

So frankly coy, so full of trembly confi- 
dences ; 

Thy shadow scarce seems shade, thy 
pattering leaflets 

Sprinkle their gathered sunshine o'er 
my senses, 

And Nature gives me all her summer 
confidences. 

Whether my heart with hope or sorrow 
tremble, 

Thou sympathizest still ; wild and un- 
quiet, 

I fling me down ; thy ripple, like a river, 

Flows valleyward, where calmness is, 
and by it 

My heart is floated down into the land 
of quiet. 



AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES 
STANDISH. 

I sat one evening in my room, 

In that sweet hour of twilight 
WTien blended thoughts, half light, half 
gloom, 

Throng through the spirit's skylight ; 
The flames by fits curled round the bars, 

Or up the chimney crinkled, 
While embers dropped like falling stars, 

And in the ashes tinkled. 

I sat and mused ; the fire burned low, 

And, o'er my senses stealing, 
Crept something of the ruddy glow 

That bloomed on wall and ceiling ; 
My pictures (they are very few, 

The heads of ancient wise men) 
Smoothed down their knotted fronts, 
and grew 

As rosy as excisemen. 

My antique high-backed Spanish chair 

Felt thrills through wood and leather, 
That had been strangers since whilere, 

Mid Andalusian heather, 
The oak that made its sturdy frame 

His happy arms stretched over 
The ox whose fortunate hide became 

The bottom's polished cover. 

It came out in that famous bark, 
That brought our sires intrepid, 

Capacious as another ark 
For furniture decrepit ; 



For, as that saved of bird and beast 

A pair for propagation, 
So has the seed of these increased 

And furnished half the nation. 

Kings sit, they say, in slippery seats ; 

But those slant precipices 
Of ice the northern voyager meets 

Less slippery are than this is ; 
To cling therein would pass the wit 

Of royal man or woman, 
And whatsoe'er can stay in it 

Is more or less than human. 

I offer to all bores this perch, 

Dear well-intentioned people 
With heads as void as week-day church, 

Tongues longer than the steeple ; 
To folks with missions, whose gaunt 
eyes 

See golden ages rising, — 
Salt of the earth ! in what queer Guys 

Thou 'rt fond of crystallizing ! 

My wonder, then, was not unmixed 

With merciful suggestion, 
When, as my roving eyes grew fixed 

Upon the chair in question, 
I saw its trembling arms enclose 

A figure grim and rusty, 
Whose doublet plain and plainer hose 

Were something worn and dusty. 

Now even such men as Nature forms 

Merely to fill the street with, 
Once turned to ghosts by hungry worms, 

Are serious things to meet with ; 
Your penitent spirits are no jokes, 

And, though I 'm not averse to 
A quiet shade, even they are folks 

One cares not to speak first to. 

WTio knows, thought I, but he has come, 

By Charon kindly ferried, 
To tell me of a mighty sum 

Behind my wainscot buried ? 
There is a buccaneerish air 

About that garb outlandish — 
Just then the ghost drew up his chair 

And said, " My name is Standish. 

" I come from Plymouth, deadly bored 
With toasts, and songs, and speeches, 

As long and flat as my old sword, 
As threadbare as my breeches : 

They understand us Pilgrims ! they, 
Smooth men with rosy faces, 



82 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Strength's knots and gnarls all pared 
away, 
And varnish in their places ! 

"We had some toughness in our grain, 

The eye to rightly see us is 
Not just the one that lights the brain 

Of drawing-room Tyrtseuses : 
They talk about their Pilgrim blood, 

Their birthright high and holy ! 
A mountain-stream that ends in mud 

Methinks is melancholy. 

" He had stiff knees, the Puritan, 

That were not good at bending ; 
The homespun dignity of man 

He thought was worth defending ; 
He did not, with his pinchbeck ore, 

His country's shame forgotten, 
Gild Freedom's coffin o'er and o'er, 

When all within was rotten. 

" These loud ancestral coasts of yours, 

How can they else than vex us ? 
Where were your dinner orators 

When slavery grasped at Texas ? 
Dumb on his knees was every one 

That now is bold as Csesar ; 
Mere pegs to hang an office on 

Such stalwart men as these are." 

"Good sir," I said, "you seem much 
stirred ; 

The sacred compromises — " 
" Now God confound the dastard word ! 

My gall thereat arises : 
Northward it hath this sense alone, 

That you, your conscience blinding, 
Shall bow your fool's nose to the stone, 

When slavery feels like grinding. 

"'T is shame to see such painted sticks 

In Vane's and Winthrop's places, 
To see your spirit of Seventy- six 

Drag humbly in the traces, 
With slavery's lash upon her back, 

And herds of office-holders 
To shout applause, as, with a crack, 

It peels her patient shoulders. 

" We forefathers to such a rout ! — 
No, by my faith in God's word ! " 

Half rose the ghost, and half drew out 
The ghost of his old broadsword, 

Then thrust it slowly back again, 
And said, with reverent gesture, 



"No, Freedom, no! blood should not 
stain 
The hem of thy white vesture. 

" I feel the soul in me draw near 

The mount of prophesying ; 
In this bleak wilderness I hear 

A John the Baptist crying ; 
Far in the east I see upleap 

The streaks of first forewarning, 
And they who sowed the light shall reap 

The golden sheaves of morning. 

" Child of our travail and our woe, 

Light in our day of sorrow, 
Through my rapt spirit I foreknow 

The glory of thy morrow ; 
I hear great steps, that through the shade 

Draw nigher still and nigher, 
And voices call like that which bade 

The prophet come up higher." 

I looked, no form mine eyes could find, 

I heard the red cock crowing, 
And through my window-chinks the 
wind 

A dismal tune was blowing ; 
Thought I, My neighbor Buckingham 

Hath somewhat in him gritty, 
Some Pilgrim-stuff that hates all sham, 

And he will print my ditty. 



ON THE CAPTURE OF FUGITIVE 
SLAVES NEAR WASHINGTON. 

Look on who will in apathy, and stifle 

they who can, 
The sympathies, the hopes, the words, 

that make man truly man ; 
Let those whose hearts are dungeoned 

up with interest or with ease 
Consent to hear with quiet pulse of 

loathsome deeds like these ! 

I first drew in New England's air, and 

from her hardy breast 
Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk that 

will not let me rest ; 
And if my words seem treason to the 

dullard and the tame, 
'T is but my Bay-State dialect, — our 

fathers spake the same ! 

Shame on the costly mockery of piling 

stone on stone. 
To those who won our liberty, the heroes' 

dead and gone, 



TO THE DANDELION. 



While we look coldly on and see law- 
shielded ruffians slay 

The men who fain would win their own, 
the heroes of to-day ! 

Are we pledged to craven silence ? 0, 

fling it to the wind, 
The parchment wall that bars us from 

the least of human kind, 
That makes us cringe and temporize, 

and dumbly stand at rest, 
While Pity's burning flood of words is 

red-hot in the breast ! 

Though we break our fathers' promise, 

we have nobler duties first ; 
The traitor to Humanity is the traitor 

most accursed ; 
Man is more than Constitutions ; better 

rot beneath the sod, 
Than be true to Church and State while 

we are doubly false to God ! 

We owe allegiance to the State ; but 

deeper, truer, more, 
To the sympathies that God hath set 

within our spirit's core ; 
Our country claims our fealty ; we grant 

it so, but then 
Before Man made us citizens, great 

Nature made us men. 

He 's true to God who 's true to man ; 

wherever wrong is done, 
To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath 

the all-beholding sun, 
That wrong is also done to us ; and they 

are slaves most base, 
Whose love of right is for themselves, 

and not for all their race. 

God works for all. Ye cannot hem the 
hope of being free 

With parallels of latitude, with moun- 
tain-range or sea. 

Put golden padlocks on Truth's lips, be 
callous as ye will, 

From soul to soul, o'er all the world, 
leaps one electric thrill. 

Chain down your slaves with ignorance, 
ye cannot keep apart, 

With all your craft of tyranny, the hu- 
man heart from heart : 

When first the Pilgrims landed on the 
Bay State's iron shore, 

The word went forth that slavery should 
one day be no more. 



Out from the land of bondage 't is de- 
creed our slaves shall go, 

And signs to us are offered, as erst to 
Pharaoh ; 

If we are blind, their exodus, like Is- 
rael's of yore, 

Through a Red Sea is doomed to be, 
whose surges are of gore. 

'T is ours to save our brethren, with 

peace and love to win 
Their darkened hearts from error, ere 

they harden it to sin ; 
But if before his duty man with listless 

spirit stands, 
Erelong the Great Avenger takes the 

work from out his hands. 



TO THE DANDELION. 

Dear common flower, that grow'st 
beside the way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless 
gold, 
First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, full of pride 
uphold, 
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed 
that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found, 
Which not the rich earth's ample 
round 
May match in wealth, thou art more 

dear to me 
Than all the prouder summer-blooms 
may be. 

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the 
Spanish prow 
Through the primeval hush of Indian 
seas, 
Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease ; 
'T is the Spring's largess, which she 
scatters now 
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 
Though most hearts never under- 
stand 
To take it at God's value, but pass by 
The offered wealth with unrewarded 
eye. 

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; 
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; 

The eyes thou givest me 
Are in the heart, and heed not space or 
time : 



84 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Not in mid Jane the golden-cui- 
rassed bee 
Feels a more summer-like warm ravish- 
ment 
In the white lily's breezy tent, 
His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when 

first 
From the dark green thy yellow cir- 
cles burst. 

Then think I of deep shadows on the 
grass, 
Of meadows where in sun the cattle 
graze, 
Where, as the breezes pass, 
The gleaming rushes lean a thousand 
ways, 
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy 
mass, 
Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue 
That from the distance sparkle 
through 
Some woodland gap, and of a sky 

above, 
Where one white cloud like a stray 
lamb doth move. 

My childhood's earliest thoughts are 
linked with thee ; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin's 
song, 
Who, from the dark old tree 
Beside the door, sang clearly all day 
long, 
And I, secure in childish piety, 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing 

With news from heaven, which he 
could bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted 

ears 
When birds and flowers and I were 
happy peers. 

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common 
art! 
Thou teachest me to deem 
More sacredly of every human heart, 
Since each reflects in joy its scanty 
gleam 
Of heaven, and could some wondrous 
secret show, 
Did we but pay the love we owe, 
And with a child's undoubting wis- 
dom look 
On all these living pages of God's 
book. 



THE GHOST-SEER. 

Ye who, passing graves by night, 

Glance not to the left nor right, 

Lest a spirit should arise, 

Cold and white, to freeze your eyes, 

Some weak phantom, which your doubt 

Shapes upon the dark without 

From the dark within, a guess 

At the spirit's deathlessness, 

Which ye entertain with fear 

In your self-built dungeon here, 

Where ye sell your God-given lives 

Just for gold to buy you gyves, — 

Ye without a shudder meet 

In the city's noonday street, 

Spirits sadder and more dread 

Than from out the clay have fled, 

Buried, beyond hope of light, 

In the body's haunted night ! 

See ye not that woman pale ? 
There are bloodhounds on her trail ! 
Bloodhounds two, all gaunt and lean, 
(For the soul their scent is keen,) 
Want and Sin, and Sin is last, 
They have followed far and fast ; 
Want gave tongue, and, at her howl, 
Sin awakened with a growl.- 
Ah, poor girl ! she had a right 
To a blessing from the light ; 
Title-deeds to sky and earth 
God gave to her at her birth ; 
But, before they were enjoyed, 
Poverty had made them void, 
And had drunk the sunshine up 
From all nature's ample cup, 
Leaving her a first-born's share 
In the dregs of darkness there. 
Often, on the sidewalk bleak, 
Hungry, all alone, and weak, 
She has seen, in night and storm, 
Rooms o'erflow with firelight warm, 
Which, outside the window-glass, 
Doubled all the cold, alas ! 
Till each ray that on her fell 
Stabbed her like an icicle, 
And she almost loved the wail 
Of the bloodhounds on her trail. 
Till the floor becomes her bier, 
She shall feel their pantings near, 
Close upon her very heels, 
Spite of all the din of wheels ; 
Shivering on her pallet poor, 
She shall hear them at the door 
Whine and scratch to be let in, 
Sister bloodhounds, Want and Sin ! 



THE GHOST-SEER. 



85 



Hark' ! that rustle of a dress, 

Stiff with lavish costliness ! 

Here comes one whose cheek would 

flush 
But to have her garment brush 
'Gainst the girl whose fingers thin 
Wove the weary broidery in, 
Bending backward from her toil, 
Lest ir tears the silk might soil, 
And, xn midnights chill and murk, 
Stitched her life into the work, 
Shaping from her bitter thought 
Heart's-ease and forget-me-not, 
Satirizing her despair 
With the emblems woven there. 
Little doth the wearer heed 
Of the heart-break in the brede ; 
A hyena by her side 
Skulks, down-looking, — it is Pride. 
He digs for her in the earth, 
Where lie all her claims of birth, 
With his foul paws rooting o'er 
Some long-buried ancestor, 
Who, perhaps, a statue won 
By the ill deeds he had done, 
By the innocent blood he shed, 
By the desolation spread 
Over happy villages, 
Blotting out the smile of peace. 

There walks Judas, he who sold 
Yesterday his Lord for gold, 
Sold God's presence in his heart 
For a proud step in the mart ; 
He hath dealt in flesh and blood ; 
At the bank his name is good ; 
At the bank, and only there, 
'T is a marketable ware. 
In his eyes that stealthy gleam 
Was not learned of sky or stream, 
But it has the cold, hard glint 
Of new dollars from the mint. 
Open now your spirit's eyes, 
Look through that poor clay disguise 
Which has thickened, day by day, 
Till it keeps all light at bay, 
And his soul in pitchy gloom 
Gropes about its narrow tomb, 
From whose dank and slimy walls 
Drop by drop the horror falls. 
Look ! a serpent lank and cold 
Hugs his spirit fold on fold ; 
From his heart, all day and night, 
It doth suck God's blessed light. 
Drink it will, and drink it must, 
Till the cup holds naught but dust ; 
All day long he hears it hiss, 



Writhing in its fiendish bliss ; 
All night long he sees its eyes 
Flicker with foul ecstasies, 
As the spirit ebbs away 
Into the absorbing clay. 

Who is he that skulks, afraid 
Of the trust he has betrayed, 
Shuddering if perchance a gleam 
Of old nobleness should stream 
Through the pent, unwholesome room, 
Where his shrunk soul cowers in 

gloom, 
Spirit sad beyond the rest 
By more instinct for the best ? 
'T is a poet who was sent 
For a bad world's punishment, 
By compelling it to see 
Golden glimpses of To Be, 
By compelling it to hear 
Songs that prove the angels near ; 
Who was sent to be the tongue 
Of the weak and spirit-wrung, 
Whence the fiery- winged Despair 
In men's shrinking eyes might flare. 
'T is our hope doth fashion us 
To base use or glorious : 
He who might have been a lark 
Of Truth's morning, from the dark 
Raining down melodious hope 
Of a freer, broader scope, 
Aspirations, prophecies, 
Of the spirit's full sunrise, 
Chose to be a bird of night, 
That, with eyes refusing light, 
Hooted from some hollow tree 
Of the world's idolatry. 
'T is his punishment to hear 
Flutterings of pinions near, 
And his own vain wings to feel 
Drooping downward to his heel, 
All their grace and import lost, 
Burdening his weary ghost : 
Ever walking by his side 
He must see his angel guide, 
Who at intervals doth turn 
Looks on him so sadly stern, 
With such ever-new surprise 
Of hushed anguish in her eyes, 
That it seems the light of day 
From around him shrinks away, 
Or drops blunted from the wall 
Built around him by his fall. 
Then the mountains, wdiose white peaks 
Catch the morning's earliest streaks, 
He must see, where prophets sit, 
Turning east their faces lit, 



86 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Whence, with footsteps beautiful, 
To the earth, yet dim and dull, 
They the gladsome tidings bring 
Of the sunlight's hastening : 
Never can these hills of bliss 
Be o'erclimbed by feet like his ! 

But enough ! 0, do not dare 
From the next the veil to tear, 
Woven of station, trade, or dress, 
More obscene than nakedness, 
Wherewith plausible culture drapes 
Fallen Nature's myriad shapes ! 
Let us rather love to mark 
How the unextinguished spark 
Will shine through the thin disguise 
Of our customs, pomps, and lies, 
And, not seldom blown to flame, 
Vindicate its ancient claim. 



STUDIES FOR TWO HEADS. 



Some sort of heart I know is hers, — 
I chanced to feel her pulse one night ; 

A brain she has that never errs, 
And yet is never nobly right ; 

It does not leap to great results, 
But, in some corner out of sight, 
Suspects a spot of latent blight, 
And, o'er the impatient infinite, 

She bargains, haggles, and consults. 

Her eye, — it seems a chemic test 

And drops upon you like an acid ; 
It bites you with unconscious zest, 

So clear and bright, so coldly placid ; 
It holds you quietly aloof, 

It holds, — and yet it does not win 
you; 
It merely puts you to the proof 

And sorts what qualities are in you ; 
It smiles, but never brings you nearer, 

It lights, — her nature draws not nigh ; 
'T is but that yours is growing clearer 

To her assays ; — yes, try and try, 

You '11 get no deeper than her eye. 

There, you are classified : she's gone 

Far, far away into herself; 
Each with its Latin label on, 
Your poor components, one by one, 

Are laid upon their proper shelf 
In her compact and ordered mind, 
And what of you is left behind 
Is no more to her than the wind ; 



In that clear brain, which, day and 
night, 
No movement of the heart e'er jostles, 
Her friends are ranged on left and 

right, — 
Here, silex, hornblende, sienite ; 
There, animal remains and fossils. 

And yet, subtile analyst, 

That canst each property detect 

Of mood or grain, that canst untwist 
Each tangled skein of intellect, 

And with thy scalpel eyes lay bare 

Each mental nerve more fine than air, — 
brain exact, that in thy scales 

Canst weigh the sun and never err, 
For once thy patient science fails, 
One problem still defies thy art ; — 

Thou never canst compute for her 

The distance and diameter 
Of any simple human heart. 

II. 

Hear him but speak, and you will feel 
The shadows of the Portico 

Over your tranquil spirit steal, 
To modulate all joy and woe 
To one subdued, subduing glow ; 

Above our squabbling business-hours, 

Like Phidian Jove's, his beauty lowers, 

His nature satirizes ours ; 

A form and front of Attic grace, 

He shames the higgling market-place, 

And dwarfs our more mechanic powers. 

What throbbing verse can fitly render 
That face so pure, so trembling-ten- 
der? 

Sensation glimmers through its rest, 
It speaks unmanacled by words, 

As full of motion as a nest 
That palpitates with unfledged birds ; 

'T is likest to Bethesda's stream, 
Forewarned through all its thrilling 
springs, 

White with the angel's coming gleam, 
And rippled with his fanning wings. 

Hear him unfold his plots and plans, 
And larger destinies seem man's ; 
You conjure from his glowing face 
The omen of a fairer race ; 
With one grand trope he boldly spans 

The gulf wherein so many fall, 

'Twixt possible and actual ; 
His first swift word, talaria-shod, 
Exuberant with conscious God, 



ON A PORTKAIT OF DANTE. — ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD. 87 



Out of the choir of planets blots 
The present earth with all its spots. 

Himself unshaken as the sky, 
His words, like whirlwinds, spin on 
high 

Systems and creeds pellmell together ; 
'T is strange as to a deaf man's eye, 
While trees uprooted splinter by, 

The dumb turmoil of stormy weather ; 

Less of iconoclast than shaper, 
His spirit, safe behind the reach 
Of the tornado of his speech, 

Burns calmly as a glowworm's ta- 
per. 

So great in speech, but, ah ! in act 

So overrun with vermin troubles, 
The coarse, sharp-cornered, ugly fact 

Of life collapses all his bubbles : 
Had he but lived in Plato's day, 

He might, unless my fancy errs, 
Have shared that golden voice's sway 

O'er barefooted philosophers. 
Our nipping climate hardly suits 
The ripening of ideal fruits : 
His theories vanquish us all summer, 
But winter makes him dumb and 

dumber ; 
To see him mid life's needful things 

Is something painfully bewildering ; 
He seems an. angel with dipt wings 

Tied to a mortal wife and children, 
And by a brother seraph taken 
In the act of eating eggs and bacon. 
Like a clear fountain, his desire 

Exults and leaps toward the light, 
In every drop it says " Aspire ! " 

Striving for more ideal height ; 
And as the fountain, falling thence, 

Crawls baffled through the common 
gutter, 
So, from his speech's eminence, 
He shrinks into the present tense, 

Unkinged by foolish bread and butter. 

Yet smile not, worldling, for in deeds 

Not all of life that's brave and wise 
is; 
He strews an ampler future's seeds, 

'T is your fault if no harvest rises ; 
Smooth back the sneer ; for is it naught 

That all he is and has is Beauty's ? 
By soul the soul's gains must be wrought, 
The Actual claims our coarser thought, 

The Ideal hath its higher duties. 



ON A PORTRAIT OF DANTE BY GIOTTO. 

Can this be thou who, lean and pale, 

With such immitigable eye 
Didst look upon those writhing souls in 
bale, 

And note each vengeance, and pass by 
Unmoved, save when thy heart by chance 
Cast backward one forbidden glance, 

And saw Francesca, with child's glee, 

Subdue and mount thy wild-horse knee 
And with proud hands control its hery 
prance ? 

With half-drooped lids, and smooth, 
round brow, 

And eye remote, that inly sees 
Fair Beatrice's spirit wandering now 

In some sea-lulled Hesperides, 
Thou movest through the jarring street, 
Secluded from the noise of feet 

By her gift-blossom in thy hand, 

Thy branch of palm from Holy 
Land ; — 
No trace is here of ruin's fiery sleet. 

Yet there is something round thy lips 

That prophesies the coming doom, 
The soft, gray herald- shadow ere the 
eclipse 
Notches the perfect disk with gloom ; 
A something that would banish thee, 
And thine untamed pursuer be, 

Fi'om men and their unworthy fates, 
Though Florence had not shut her 
gates, 
And Grief had loosed her clutch and let 
thee free. 

Ah ! he who follows fearlessly 

The Reckonings of a poet-heart 
Shall wander, and without the world's 
decree, 
A banished man in field and mart; 
Harder than Florence' walls the bar 
Which with deaf sternness holds him 
far 
From home and friends, till death's 

release, 
And makes his only prayer for peace, 
Like thine, scarred veteran of a lifelong 
war! 



ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND'S CHILD. 

Death never came so nigh to me before, 
Nor showed me his mild face : oft bad I 
mused 



88 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Of calm and peace and deep forgetful- 

ness, 
Of folded hands, closed eyes, and heart 

at rest, 
And slumber sound beneath a flowery 

turf, 
Of faults forgotten, and an inner place 
Kept sacred for us in the heart of 

friends ; 
But these were idle fancies, satisfied 
With the mere husk of this great mys- 

teiy, 
And dwelling in the outward shows of 

things. 
Heaven is not mounted to on wings of 

dreams, 
Nor doth the unthankful happiness of 

youth 
Aim thitherward, but floats from bloom 

to bloom, 
With earth's warm patch of sunshine 

well content : 
'T is sorrow builds the shining ladder up, 
Whose golden rounds are our calamities, 
Whereon our firm feet planting, nearer 

God 
The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes un- 
. sealed. 

True is it that Death's face seems stern 

and cold, 
When he is sent to summon those we 

love, 
But all God's angels come to us dis- 
guised ; 
Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death, 
One after other lift their frowning 

masks, 
And we behold the seraph's face beneath, 
All radiant with the glory and the calm 
Of having looked upon the front of God. 
With every anguish of our earthly part 
The spirit's sight grows clearer; this was 

meant 
When Jesus touched the blind man's 

lids with clay. 
Life is the jailer, Death the angel sent 
To draw the unwilling bolts and set us 

free. 
He flings not ope the ivory gate of 

Rest, — 
Only the fallen spirit knocks at that, — 
But to benign er regions beckons us, 
To destinies of more rewarded toil. 
In the hushed chamber, sitting by the 

dead, 
It grates on us to hear the flood of life 



Whirl rustling onward, senseless of out 

loss. 
The bee hums on ; around the blossomed 

vine 
Whirs the light humming-bird; the 

cricket chirps ; 
The locust's shrill alarum stings the 

ear; 
Hard by, the cock shouts lustily ; from 

farm to farm, 
His cheery brothers, telling of the sun, 
Answer, till far away the joyance dies : 
We never knew before how God had 

filled 
The summer air with happy living 

sounds ; 
All round us seems an overplus of life, 
And yet the one dear heart lies cold and 

still. 
It is most strange, when the great mir- 
acle 
Hath for our sakes been done, when we 

have had 
Our inwardest experience of God, 
When with his presence still the room 

expands, 
And is awed after him, that naught is 

changed, 
That Nature's face looks unacknowl- 

edging, 
And the mad world still dances heedless 

on 
After its butterflies, and gives no sign. 
'T is hard at first to see it all aright: 
In vain Faith blows her trump to sum- 
mon back 
Her scattered troop : yet, through the 

clouded glass 
Of our own bitter tears, we learn to look 
Undazzled on the kindness of God's 

face; 
Earth is too dark, and Heaven alone 

shines through. 

It is no little thing, when a fresh soul 
And a fresh, heart, with their unmeas- 
ured scope 
For good, not gravitating earthward yet, 
But circling in diviner periods, 
Are sent into the world, — no little 

thing, 
When this unbounded possibility 
Into the outer silence is withdrawn. 
Ah, in this world, where every guiding 

thread 
Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, 
death, 



EURYDICE. 



89 



The visionary hand of Might-have-been 
Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim ! 

How changed, dear friend, are thy part 

and thy child's ! 
He bends above thy cradle now, or holds 
His warning finger out to be thy guide ; 
Thou art the nursling now ; he watches 

thee 
Slow learning, one by one, the secret 

things 
Which are to him used sights of every 

day; 
He smiles to see thy wondering glances 

con 
The grass and pebbles of the spirit- 
world, 
To thee miraculous ; and he will teach 
Thy knees their due observances of 

prayer. 
Children are God's apostles, day by day 
Sent forth to preach of love, and hope, 

and peace ; 
Nor hath thy babe his mission left un- 
done. 
To me, at least, his going hence hath 

given 
Serener thoughts and nearer to the skies, 
And opened a new fountain in my heart 
For thee, my friend, and all : and 0, if 

Death 
More near approaches meditates, and 

clasps 
Even now some dearer, more reluctant 

hand, 
God, strengthen thou my faith, that I 

may see 
That 't is thine angel, who, with loving 

haste, 
Unto the service of the inner shrine, 
Doth waken thy beloved with a kiss. 



EURYDICE. 

Heaven's cup held down to me I 

drain, 
The sunshine mounts and spurs my 

brain ; 
Bathing in grass, with thirsty eye 
I suck the last drop of the sky ; 
With each hot sense I draw to the lees 
The quickening out-door influences, 
And empty to each radiant comer 
A supernaculum of summer : 
Not, Bacchus, all thy grosser juice 
Could bring enchantment so profuse, 



Though for its press each grape-bunch had 
The white feet of an Oread. 

Through our coarse art gleam, now and 

then, 
The features of angelic men : 
'Neath the lewd Satyr's veiling paint 
Glows forth the Sibyl, Muse, or Saint ; 
The dauber's botch no more obscures 
The mighty master's portraitures. 
And who can say what luckier beam 
The hidden glory shall redeem, 
For what chance clod the soul may wait 
To stumble on its nobler fate, 
Or why, to his unwarned abode, 
Still by surprises comes the God ? 
Some moment, nailed on sorrow's cross, 
May meditate a whole youth's loss, 
Some windfall joy, we know not whence, 
Redeem a lifetime's rash expense, 
And, suddenly wise, the soul may mark, 
Stripped of their simulated dark, 
Mountains of gold that pierce the sky, 
Girdling its valleyed poverty. 

I feel ye, childhood's hopes, return, 
With olden heats my pulses burn, — 
Mine be the self-forgetting sweep, 
The torrent impulse swift and wild, 
Wherewith Taghkanic's rockborn child 
Dares gloriously the dangerous leap, 
And, in his sky-descended mood, 
Transmutes each drop of sluggish blood, 
By touch of bravery's simple wand, 
To amethyst and diamond, 
Proving himself no bastard slip, 
But the true granite-cradled one, 
Nursed with the rock's primeval drip, 
The cloud- embracing mountain's son ! 

Prayer breathed in vain ! no wish's sway 
Rebuilds the vanished yesterday ; 
For plated wares of Sheffield stamp 
We gave the old Aladdin's lamp ; 
'T is we are changed ; ah, whither went 
That undesigned abandonment, 
That wise, unquestioning content, 
Which could erect its microcosm 
Out of a weed's neglected blossom, 
Could call up Arthur and his peers 
By a low moss's clump of spears, 
Or, in its shingle trireme launched, 
Where Charles in some green inlet 

branched, 
Could venture for the golden fleece 
And dragon- watched Hesperides, 
Or, from its ripple- shattered fate, 



90 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Ulysses' chances re-create ? 
When, heralding life's every phase, 
There glowed a goddess-veiling haze, 
A plenteous, forewarning grace, 
Like that more tender dawn that flies 
Before the full moon's ample rise ? 
Methinks thy parting glory shines 
Through yonder grove of singing pines ; 
At that elm- vista's end I trace 
Dimly thy sad leave-taking face, 
Eurydice ! Eurydice ! 
The tremulous leaves repeat to me 
Eurydice ! Eurydice ! 
No gloomier Orcus swallows thee 
Than the unclouded sunset's glow ; 
Thine is at least Elysian w T oe ; 
Thou hast Good's natural decay, 
And fades t like a star away 
Into an atmosphere whose shine 
With fuller day o'erm asters thine, 
Entering defeat as 't were a shrine ; 
For us, — we turn life's diary o'er 
To find but one word, — Nevermore. 



SHE CAME AND WENT. 

As a twig trembles, which a bird 

Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent, 

So is my memory thrilled and stirred ; — 
I only know she came and went. 

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven, 
The blue dome's measureless content, 

So my soul held that moment's heaven; — 
I only know she came and went. 

As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps 
The orchards full of bloom and scent, 

So clove her May my wintry sleeps ; — 
I only know she came and went. 

An angel stood and met my gaze, 

Through the low doorway of my tent ; 

The tent is struck, the vision stays ; — 
I only know she came and went. 

0, when the room grows slowly dim, 
And life's last oil is nearly spent, 

One gush of light these eyes will brim, 
Only to think she came and went. 



THE CHANGELING. 

I had a little daughter, 
And she w 7 as given to me 

To lead me gently backward 
To the Heavenly Father's knee, 



That I, by the force of nature, 
Might in some dim wise divine 

The depth of his infinite patience 
To this wayward soul of mine. 

I know not how T others saw her, 

But to me she was wholly fair, 
And the light of the heaven she came 
from 

Still lingered and gleamed in her hair ; 
For it was as wavy and golden, 

And as many changes took, 
As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples 

On the yellow bed of a brook. 

To what can I liken her smiling 

Upon me, her kneeling lover, 
How it leaped from her lips to her eye- 
lids, 

And dimpled her wholly over, 
Till her outstretched hands smiled also, 

And I almost seemed to see 
The very heart of her mother 

Sending sun through her veins to me ! 

She had been with us scarce a twelve- 
month, 

And it hardly seemed a day, 
When a troop of wandering angels 

Stole my little daughter away; 
Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari 

But loosed the hampering strings, 
And when they had opened her cage- 
door, 

My little bird used her wings. 

But they left in her stead a changeling, 

A little angel child, 
That seems like her bud in full blossom, 

And smiles as she never smiled : 
When I wake in the morning, I see it 

Where she always used to lie, 
And I feel as weak as a violet 

Alone 'neath the awful sky. 

As weak, yet as trustful also ; 

For the whole year long I see 
All the wonders of faithful Nature 

Still worked for the love of me ; 
Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, 

Rain falls, suns rise and set, 
Earth whirls, and all but to prosper 

A poor little violet. 

This child is not mine as the first was, 

I cannot sing it to rest, 
I cannot lift it up fatherly 

And bliss it upon my breast ; 



THE PIONEEE. 



91 



Yet it lies in my little one's cradle 
And sits in my little one's chair, 

And the light of the heaven she 's gone to 
Transfigures its golden hair. 



THE PIONEER. 

What man would live coffined with 
brick and stone, 
Imprisoned from the influences of air, 
And cramped with selfish landmarks 
everywhere, 
When all before him stretches, furrow- 
less and lone, 
The unmapped prairie none can fence 
or own ? 

What man would read and read the 
selfsame faces, 
And, like the marbles which the 

windmill grinds, 
Rub smooth forever with the same 
smooth minds, 
This year retracing last year's, every 
year's, dull traces, 
When there are woods and un-man- 
stifled places ? 

What man o'er one old thought would 
pore and pore, 
Shut like a book between its covers 

thin 
For every fool to leave his dog's- 
ears in, 
When solitude is his, and God forever- 
more, 
Just for the opening of a paltry door ? 

What man would watch life's oozy 
element 
Creep Letheward forever, when he 

might 
Down some great river drift beyond 
men's sight, 
To where the undethroned forest's royal 
tent 
Broods with its hush o'er half a con- 
tinent ? 

What man with men would push and 

altercate, 
Piecing out crooked means for 

crooked ends, 
When he can have the skies and 

woods for friends, 



Snatch back the rudder of his undis- 
mantled fate, 
And in himself be ruler, church, and 

state ? 

Cast leaves and feathers rot in last 
year's nest, 
The winged brood, flown thence, 

new dwellings plan ; 
The serf of his own Past is not a 
man; 
To change and change is life, to move 
and never rest ; — 
Not what we are, but what we hope, 
is best. 

The wild, free woods make no man 
halt or blind; 
Cities rob men of eyes and hands 

and feet, 
Patching one whole of many incom- 
plete ; 
The general preys upon the individual 
mind, 
And each alone is helpless as the wind. 

Each man is some man's servant; 
every soul 
Is by some other's presence quite 

discrowned ; 
Each owes the next through all the 
imperfect round, 
Yet not with mutual help ; each man Is 
his own goal, 
And the whole earth must stop to pay 
his toll. 

Here, life the undiminished man de- 
mands ; 
New faculties stretch out to meet 

new wants ; 
What Nature asks, that Nature also 
grants ; 
Here man is lord, not drudge, of eyes 
and feet and hands, 
And to his life is knit with hourly 
bands. 

Come out, then, from the old thoughts 
and old ways, 
Before you harden to a crystal cold 
Which the new life can shatter, but 
not mould ; 
Freedom for you still waits, still, look- 
ing backward, stays, 
But widens still the irretrievable 
space. 



92 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



LONGING. 

Of all the myriad moods of mind 

That through the soul come thronging, 
Which one was e'er so dear, so kind, 

So beautiful as Longing? 
The thing we long for, that we are 

For one transcendent moment, 
Before the Present poor and bare 

Can make its sneering comment. 

Still, through our paltry stir and strife, 

Glows down the wished Ideal, 
And Longing moulds in clay what Life 

Carves in the marble Beal ; 
To let the new life in, we know, 

Desire must ope the portal ; — 
Perhaps the longing to be so 

Helps make the soul immortal. 

Longing is God's fresh heavenward will 

With our poor earthward striving ; 
We quench it that we may be still 

Content with merely living; 
But, would we learn that heart's full 
scope 

Which we are hourly wronging, 
Our lives must climb from hope to hope 

And realize our longing. 

Ah ! let us hope that to our praise 

Good God not only reckons 
The moments when we tread his ways, 

But when the spirit beckons, — 
That some slight good is also wrought 

Beyond self-satisfaction, 
When we are simply good in thought, 

Howe'er we fail in action. 



ODE TO FRANCE. 

FEBRUARY, 1848. 
I. 

As, flake by flake, the beetling ava- 
lanches 
Build up their imminent crags of 
noiseless snow, 
Till some chance thrill the loosened ruin 
launches 
And the blind havoc leaps unwarned 
below, 
So grew and gathered through the silent 
years 
The madness of a People, wrong by 
wrong. 



There seemed no strength in the dumb 

toiler's tears, 

No strength in suffering ; but the Past 

was strong : 

The brute despair of trampled centuries 

Leaped up with one hoarse yell and 

snapped its bands, 
Groped for its right with horny, cal- 
lous hands, 
And stared around for God with blood- 
shot eyes. 
What wonder if those palms were all 
too hard 
For nice distinctions, — if that maenad 
throng — 
They whose thick atmosphere no bard 
Had shivered with the lightning of his 
song, 
Brutes with the memories and desires 

of men, 
Whose chronicles were writ with iron 
pen, 
In the crooked shoulder and the 
forehead low, 
Set wrong to balance wrong, 
And physicked woe with woe ? 



They did as they were taught ; not theirs 

the blame, 
If men who scattered firebrands reaped 
the flame : 
They trampled Peace beneath their 
savage feet, 
And by her golden tresses drew 
Mercy along the pavement of the 
street. 
Freedom ! Freedom ! is thy morning- 
dew 
So gory red? Alas, thy light had 

ne'er 
Shone in upon the chaos of their 
lair ! 
They reared to thee such symbol as they 
knew, 
And worshipped it with flame and 

blood, 
A Vengeance, axe in hand, that 
stood 
Holding a tyrant's head up by the clot- 
ted hair. 

III. 

What wrongs the Oppressor suffered, 
these we know ; 
These have found piteous voice in song 
and prose ; 



ODE TO FRANCE. 



93 



But for the Oppressed, their darkness 
and their woe, 
Their grinding centuries, —what Muse 
had those ? 
Though hall and palace had nor eyes 
nor ears, 
Hardening a people's heart to senseless 
stone, 
Thou knewest them, Earth, that 
drank their tears, 
Heaven, that heard their inarticu- 
late moan ! 
They noted down their fetters, link by 

link ; 
Coarse was the hand that scrawled, and 
red the ink ; 
Rude was their score, as suits unlet- 
tered men, 
Notched with a headsman's axe upon 

a block : 
What marvel if, when came the aveng- 
ing shock, 
'Twas Ate, not Urania, held the 
pen ? 



With eye averted, and an anguished 
frown, 
Loathingly glides the Muse through 
scenes of strife, 
Where, like the heart of Vengeance up 
and down, 
Throbs in its framework the blood- 
muffled knife ; 
Slow are the steps of Freedom, but her 
feet 
Turn never backward : hers no bloody 
glare ; 
Her light is calm, and innocent, and 
sweet, 
And where it enters there is no de- 
spair : 
Not first on palace and cathedral spire 
Quivers and gleams that unconsuming 
fire ; 
While these stand black against her 
morning skies, 
The peasant sees it leap from peak to 
peak 
Along his hills ; the craftsman's burn- 
ing eyes 
Own with cool tears its influence mother- 
meek ; 
It lights the poet's heart up like a 

star ; 
Ah ! while the tyrant deemed it still 
afar, 



And twined with golden threads his 
futile snare, 
That swift, convicting glow all round 
him ran ; 
'T was close beside him there, 
Sunrise whose Memnon is the soul of 
man. 

v. 
Broker-King, is this thy wisdom's 
fruit ? 
A dynasty plucked out as 't were a 

weed 
Grown rankly in a night, that leaves 
no seed ! 
Could eighteen years strike down no 
deeper root ? 
But now thy vulture eye was turned 
on Spain, — 
A shout from Paris, and thy crown falls 
off, 
Thy race has ceased to reign, 
And thou become a fugitive and scoff: 
Slippery the feet that mount by stairs 
of gold, 
And weakest of all fences one of steel ; — 
Go and keep school again like him of 
old, 
The Syracusan tvrant ; — thou mayst 

feel 
Royal amid a birch-swayed commonweal ! 



Not long can he be ruler who allows 
His time to run before him ; thou 
wast naught 
Soon as the strip of gold about thy brows 
Was no more emblem of the People's 
thought : 
Vain were thy bayonets against the foe 
Thou hadst to cope with ; thou didst 
wage 
War not with Frenchmen merely ; — no, 
Thy strife was with the Spirit of the 

. A S e ' 
The invisible Spirit whose first breath 

divine 

Scattered thy frail endeavor, 

And, like poor last year's leaves, 

whirled thee and thine 

Into the Dark forever ! 



Is here no triumph ? Nay, what 
though 
The yellow blood of Trade meanwhile 
should pour 



94 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Along its arteries a shrunken flow, 
And the idle canvas droop around the 
shore ? 
These do not make a state, 
Nor keep it great ; 
I think God made 
The earth for man, not trade ; 
And where each humblest human crea- 
ture 
Can stand, no more suspicious or afraid, 
Erect and kingly in his right of nature, 
To heaven and earth knit with harmo- 
nious ties, — 
"Where I behold the exultation 
Of manhood glowing in those eyes 
That had been dark for ages, 
Or only lit with bestial loves and 
rages, 
There I behold a Nation : 

The France which lies 
Between the Pyrenees and Rhine 
Is the least part of France ; 
I see her rather in the soul whose shine 
Burns through the craftsman's grimy 
countenance, 
In the new energy divine 
Of Toil's enfranchised glance. 

VIII. 

And if it be a dream, — 
If the great Future be the little Past 
'Neath a new mask, which drops and 

shows at last 
The same weird, mocking face to balk 
and blast, — 
Yet, Muse, a gladder measure suits the 
theme, 
And the Tyrtsean harp 
Loves notes more resolute and 
sharp, 
Throbbing, as throbs the bosom, hot 
and fast : 
Such visions are of morning, 
Theirs is no vague forewarning, 
The dreams which nations dream come 
true, 
And shape the world anew ; 
If this be a sleep, 
Make it long, make it deep, 
Father, who sendest the harvests men 
reap ! 
While Labor so sleepeth, 
His sorrow is gone, 
No longer he weepeth, 
But smileth and steepeth 

His thoughts in the dawn ; 
He heareth Hope yonder 



Rain, lark -like, her fancies, 
His dreaming hands wander 

Mid heart's-ease and pansies ; 
" 'T is a dream ! 'T is a vision !' 

Shrieks Mammon aghast ; 
" The day's broad derision 

Will chase it at last ; 
Ye are mad, ye have taken 
A slumbering kraken 

For firm land of the Past ! " 
Ah ! if he awaken, 

God shield us all then, 
If this dream rudely shaken 

Shall cheat him again ! 

IX. 

Since first I heard our North-wind 

blow, 
Since first I saw Atlantic throw 
On our fierce rocks his thunderous 

snow, 
I loved thee, Freedom ; as a boy 
The rattle of thy shield at Marathon 
Did with a Grecian joy 
Through all my pulses run ; 
But I have learned to love thee now 
Without the helm upon thy gleaming 
brow, 
A maiden mild and un defiled 
Like her who bore the world's redeem- 
ing child ; 
And surely never did thine altars 

glance 
With purer fires than now in France; 
While, in their bright white flashes, 
Wrong's shadow, backward cast, 
Waves cowering o'er the ashes 

Of the dead, blaspheming Past, 
O'er the shapes of fallen giants, 
His own unburied brood, 
Whose dead hands clench defiance 

At the overpowering Good : 
And down the happy future runs a flood 

Of prophesying light ; 
It shows an Earth no longer stained 

with blood, 
Blossom and fruit where now we see the 
bud 
Of Brotherhood and Right. 



ANTI-APIS. 

Praisest Law, friend ? We, too, love it 
much as they that love it best ; 

'T is the deep, august foundation, where- 
on Peace and Justice rest ; 



ANTI-APIS. 



95 



On the rock primeval, hidden in the 

Past its bases be, 
Block by block the endeavoring Ages 

built it up to what we see. 

But dig down : the Old unbury ; thou 

shalt find on every stone 
That each Age hath carved the symbol 

of what god to them was known. 
Ugly shapes and brutish sometimes, but 

the fairest that they knew ; 
If their sight were dim and earthward, 

yet their hope and aim were true. 

Surely as the unconscious needle feels 
the far-off loadstar draw, 

So strives every gracious nature to at- 
one itself with law ; 

And the elder Saints and Sages laid their 
pious framework right 

By a theocratic instinct covered from the 
people's sight. 

As their gods were, so their laws were ; 

Thor the strong could reave and 

steal, 
So through many a peaceful inlet tore the 

Norseman's eager keel ; 
But a new law came when Christ came, 

and not blameless, as before, 
Can we, paying him our lip-tithes, give 

our lives and faiths to Thor. 

Law is holy : ay, but what law 1 Is there 
nothing more divine 

Than the patched-up broils of Congress, 
— venal, full of meat and wine ? 

Is there, say you, nothing higher ? 
Naught, God save us ! that tran- 
scends 

Laws of cotton texture, wove by vulgar 
men for vulgar ends ? 

Did Jehovah ask their counsel, or sub- 
mit to them a plan, 

Ere he rilled with loves, hopes, longings, 
this aspiring heart of man ? 

For their edict does the soul wait, ere it- 
swing round to the pole 

Of the true, the free, the God-willed, all 
that makes it be a soul ? 

Law is holy ; but not your law, ye who 

keep the tablets whole 
While ye dash the Law to pieces, shatter 

it in life and soul : 



Bearing up the Ark is lightsome, golden 

Apis kid within, 
While we Levites share the offerings, 

richer by the people's sin. 

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's ? yes, but 
tell me, if you can, 

Is this superscription Caesar's here upon 
our brother man? 

Is not here some other's image, dark and 
sullied though it be, 

In this fellow-soul that worships, strug- 
gles Godward even as we ? 

It was not to such a future that the May- 
flower's prow was turned ; 

Not to such a faith the martyrs clung, 
exulting as they burned ; 

Not by such laws are men fashioned, 
earnest, simple, valiant, great 

In the household virtues whereon rests 
the unconquerable state. 

Ah ! there is a higher gospel, overhead 

the God-roof springs, 
And each glad, obedient planet like a 

golden shuttle sings 
Through the web which Time is weaving 

in his never-resting loom, — 
Weaving seasons many- colored, bringing 

prophecy to doom. 

Think you Truth a farthing rushlight, 
to be pinched out when you will 

With your deft official fingers, and your 
politicians' skill ? 

Is your God a wooden fetish, to be hid- 
den out of sight 

That his block eyes may not see you do 
the thing that is not right ? 

But the Destinies think not so ; to their 

judgment-chamber lone 
Comes no noise of popular clamor, there 

Fame's trumpet is not blown ; 
Your majorities they reck not; — that 

you grant, but then you say 
That you differ with them somewhat, — 

which is stronger, you or they ? 

Patient are they as the insects that build 

islands in the deep ; 
They hurl not the bolted thunder, but 

their silent way they keep ; 



96 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Where they have been that we know ; 

where empires towered that were not 

just ; 
Lo ! the skulking wild fox scratches in a 

little heap of dust. 

1851. 

A PARABLE. 

Said Christ our Lord, "I will go and see 
How the men, my brethren, believe in 

me." 
He passed not again through the gate of 

birth, 
But made himself known to the children 

of earth. 

Then said the chief priests, and rulers, 

and kings, 
" Behold, now, the Giver of all good 

things ; 
Go to, let us welcome with pomp and 

state 
Him who alone is mighty and great." 

With carpets of gold the ground they 

spread 
Wherever the Son of Mean should tread, 
And in palace- chambers lofty and rare 
They lodged him, and served him with 

kingly fare. 

Great organs surged through arches dim 
Their jubilant floods in praise of him ; 
And in church, and palace, and judg- 
ment-hall, 
He saw his image high over all. 

But still, wherever his steps they led, 
The Lord in sorrow bent down his head, 
And from under the heavy foundation- 
stones, 
The son of Mary heard bitter groans. 

And in church, and palace, and judg- 
ment-hall, 

He marked great fissures that rent the 
wall, 

And opened wider and }^et more wide 

As the living foundation heaved and 
sighed. 

" Have ye founded your thrones and 

altars, then, 
On the bodies and souls of living men ? 
And think ye that building shall endure, 
Which shelters the noble and crushes the 

poor? 



" With gates of silver and bars of gold 
Ye have fenced my sheep from their 

Father's fold; 
I have heard the dropping of their tears 
In heaven these eighteen hundred years." 

" Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, 
We build but as our fathers built ; 
Behold thine images, how they stand, 
Sovereign and sole, through all our land. 

' 'Our task is hard, — with sword and 

flame 
To hold thine earth forever the same, 
And with sharp crooks of steel to keep 
Still, as thou leftest them, thy sheep." 

Then Christ sought out an artisan, 
A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, 
And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin 
Pushed from her faintly want and sin. 

These set he in the midst of them, 

And as they drew back their garment- 
hem, 

For fear of defilement, " Lo, here," said 
he, 

" The images ye have made of me !" 



ODE 

WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OP 
THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COCHIT- 
TJATE WATER INTO THE CITY OF 
BOSTON. 

My name is Water : I have sped 

Through strange, dark ways, untried 
before, 

By pure desire of friendship led, 
Cochituate's ambassador ; 

He sends four royal gifts by me : 

Long life, health, peace, and purity. 

I 'm Ceres' cup-bearer ; I pour, 

For flowers and fruits and all their kin, 

Her crystal vintage, from of yore 
Stored in old Earth's selectest bin, 

Flora's Falernian ripe, since God 

The wine-press of the deluge trod. 

In that far isle whence, iron-willed, 
The New World's sires their bark 
unmoored, 

The fairies' acorn-cups I filled 
Upon the toadstool's silver board. 



LINES. 



97 



And, 'neath Heme's oak, for Shake- 
speare's sight, 

Strewed moss and grass with diamonds 
bright. 

No fairies in the Mayflower came, 
And, lightsome as I sparkle here, 

For Mother Bay State, busy dame, 
I 've toiled and drudged this many a 
year, 

Throbbed in her engines' iron veins, 

Twirled myriad spindles for her gains. 

I, too, can weave : the warp I set 

Through which the sun his shuttle 
throws, 

And, bright as Noah saw it, yet 
For you the arching rainbow glows, 

A sight in Paradise denied 

To unfallen Adam and his bride. 

When Winter held me in his grip, 
You seized and sent me o'er the wave, 

Ungrateful ! in a prison-ship ; 
But I forgive, not long a slave, 

For, soon as summer south-winds blew, 

Homeward I fled, disguised as dew. 

For countless services I 'm fit, 
Of use, of pleasure, and of gain, 

But lightly from all bonds I flit, 
Nor lose my mirth, nor feel a stain ; 

From mill and wash-tub I escape, 

And take in heaven my proper shape. 

So, free myself, to-day, elate 

I come from far o'er hill and mead, 

And here, Cochituate's envoy, wait 
To be your blithesome Ganymede, 

And brim your cups with nectar true 

That never will make slaves of you. 



LINES 

SUGGESTED BY THE GRAVES OF TWO 
ENGLISH SOLDIERS ON CONCORD 
BATTLE-GROUND. 

The same good blood that now refills 
The dotard Orient's shrunken veins, 
The same whose vigor westward thrills, 
Bursting Nevada's silver chains, 
Poured here upon the April grass, 
Freckled with red the herbage new ; 
On reeled the battle's trampling mass, 
Back to the ash the bluebird flew. 
7 



Poured here in vain ; — that sturdy blood 
Was meant to make the earth more 

green, 
But in a higher, gentler mood 
Than broke this April noon serene ; 
Two graves are here : to mark the place, 
At head and foot, an unhewn stone, 
O'er which the herald lichens trace 
The blazon of Oblivion. 

These men were brave enough, and true 
To the hired soldier's bull- dog creed ; 
What brought them here they never 

knew, 
They fought as suits the English breed : 
They came three thousand miles, and 

died, 
To keep the Past upon its throne ; 
Unheard, beyond the ocean tide, 
Their English mother made her moan. 

The turf that covers them no thrill 
Sends up to fire the heart and brain ; 
No stronger purpose nerves the will, 
No hope renews its youth again : 
From farm to farm the Concord glides, 
And trails my fancy with its flow ; 
O'erhead the balanced hen-hawk slides, 
Twinned in the river's heaven below. 

But go, whose Bay State bosom stirs, 
Proud of thy birth and neighbor's right, 
Where sleep the heroic villagers 
Borne red and stiff from Concord fight ; 
Thought Reuben, snatching down his 

gun, 
Or Seth, as ebbed the life away, 
What earthquake rifts would shoot and 

run 
World-wide from that short April fray ? 

What then ? With heart and hand they 

wrought, 
According to their village light ; 
'T was for the Future that they fought, 
Their rustic faith in what was right. 
Upon earth's tragic stage they burst 
Unsummoned, in the humble sock ; 
Theirs the fifth act ; the curtain first 
Rose long ago on Charles's block. 

Their graves have voices ; if they threw 
Dice charged with fates beyond their 

ken, 
Yet to their instincts they were true, 
And had the genius to be men. 



98 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Fine privilege of Freedom's host, 
Of even foot- soldiers for the Right ! — 
For centuries dead, ye are not lost, 
Your graves send courage forth, and 
might. 

TO . 

"We, too, have autumns, when our leaves 
Drop loosely through the dampened 
air, 
When all our good seems bound in 
sheaves, 
And we stand reaped and bare. 

Our seasons have no fixed returns, 
Without our will they come and go ; 

At noon our sudden summer burns, 
Ere sunset all is snow. 

But each day brings less summer cheer, 
Crimps more our ineffectual spring, 

And something earlier every year 
Our singing birds take wing. 

As less the olden glow abides, 

And less the chillier heart aspires, 

With drift-wood beached in past spring- 
tides 
We light our sullen fires. 

By the pinched rushlight's starving 
beam 
We cower and strain our wasted sight, 
To stitch youth's shroud up, seam by 
seam, 
In the long arctic night. 

It was not so — we once were young — 
When Spring, to womanly Summer 
turning, 
Her dew-drops on each grass-blade 
strung, 
In the red sunrise burning. 

We trusted then, aspired, believed 
That earth could be remade to-mor- 
row ; — 

Ah, why be ever undeceived ? 
Why give up faith for sorrow ? 

thou, whose days are yet all spring, 
Faith, blighted once, is past retriev- 
ing; 

Experience is a dumb, dead thing ; 
The victory 's in believing, 



FREEDOM. 

Are we, then, wholly fallen ? Can it be 
That thou, North wind, that from thy 

mountains bringest 
Their spirit to our plains, and thou, 

blue sea, 
Who on our rocks thy wreaths of free- 
dom flingest, 
As on an altar, — can it be that ye 
Have wasted inspiration on dead ears, 
Dulled with the too familiar clank of 

chains ? 
The people's heart is like a harp for 

years 
Hung where some petrifying torrent rains 
Its slow-incrusting spray : the stiffened 

chords 
Faint and more faint make answer to the 

tears 
That drip upon them : idle are all words : 
Only a silver plectrum wakes the tone 
Deep buried 'neath that ever-thickening 

stone. 



We are not free : Freedom doth not 

consist 
In musing with our faces toward the 

Past, 
While petty cares, and crawling inter- 
ests, tw T ist 
Their spider- threads about us, which at 

last 
Grow strong as iron chains, to cramp 

and bind 
In formal narrowness heart, soul, and 

mind. 
Freedom is recreated year by year, 
In hearts wide open on the Godward side, 
In souls calm-cadenced as the whirling 

sphere, 
In minds that sway the future like a tide. 
No broadest creeds can hold her, and no 

codes ; 
She chooses men for her august abodes, 
Building them fair and fronting to the 

dawn ; 
Yet, when we seek her, we but find a 

few 
Light footprints, leading morn-ward 

through the dew : 
Before the day had risen, she was gone. 

And we must follow : swiftly runs she on, 
And, if our steps should slacken in de- 
spair, 



BIBLIOLATEES. 



99 



Half turns her face, half smiles through 

golden hair, 
Forever yielding, never wholly won : 
That is not love which pauses in the race 
Two close -linked names on fleeting sand 

to trace ; 
Freedom gained yesterday is no more 

ours ; 
Men gather but dry seeds of last year's 

flowers ; 
Still there 's a charm ungranted, still a 

grace, 
Still rosy Hope, the free, the unattained, 
Makes us Possession's languid hand let 

fall; 
'T is but a fragment of ourselves is 

gained, — 
The Future brings us more, but never 

all. 

And, as the finder of some unknown 
realm, 

Mounting a summit whence he thinks to 
see 

On either side of him the imprisoning 
sea, 

Beholds, above the clouds that over- 
whelm 

The valley-Jand, peak after snowy peak 

Stretch out of sight, each like a silver 
helm 

Beneath its plume of smoke, sublime 
and bleak, 

And what he thought an island finds to 
be 

A continent to him first oped, — so we 

Can from our height of Freedom look 
along 

A boundless future, ours if we be strong ; 

Or if we shrink, better remount our 
ships 

And, fleeing God's express design, trace 
back 

The hero-freighted Mayflower's prophet- 
track 

To Europe, entering her blood-red eclipse. 

1848. 

BIBLIOLATRES. 

Bowing thyself in dust before a Book, 
And thinking the great God is thine 

alone, 
rash iconoclast, thou wilt not brook 
What gods the heathen carves in wood 

and stone, 
As if the Shepherd who from outer cold 



Leads all his shivering lambs to one sure 

fold 
Were careful for the fashion of his crook. 

There is no broken reed so poor and base, 

No rush, the bending tilt of swamp-fly 
blue, 

But he therewith the ravening wolf can 
chase, 

And guide his flock to springs and pas- 
tures new ; 

Through ways unlooked for, and through 
many lands, 

Far from the rich folds built with human 
hands, 

The gracious footprints of his love I 
trace. 

And what art thou, own brother of the 

clod, 
That from his hand the crook would 

snatch away 
And shake instead thy dry and sapless 

rod, 
To scare the sheep out of the wholesome 

day? 
Yea, what art thou, blind, unconverted 

Jew, 
That with thy idol-volume's covers two 
Wouldst make a jail to coop the living 

God? 

Thou hear'st not well the mountain 
organ-tones 

By prophet ears from Hor and Sinai 
caught, 

Thinking the cisterns of those Hebrew 
brains 

Drew dry the springs of the All-knower's 
thought, 

Nor shall thy lips be touched with liv- 
ing fire, 

Who blow'st old altar-coals with sole 
desire 

To weld anew the spirit's broken chains. 

God is not dumb, that he should speak 
no more ; 

If thou hast wanderings in the wilder- 
ness 

And find'st not Sinai, 't is thy soul is 
poor ; 

There towers the mountain of the Voice 
no less, 

Which whoso seeks shall find, but he 
who bends, 



100 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Intent on manna still and mortal ends, 
Sees it not, neither hears its thundered 
lore. 

Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, 
And not on paper leaves nor leaves of 

stone ; 
Each age, each kindred, adds a verse 

to it, 
Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan. 
While swings the sea, while mists the 

mountains shroud, 
While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of 

cloud, 
Still at the prophets' feet the nations sit. 



BEAVER BROOK. 

Hushed with broad sunlight lies the 

hill, 
And, minuting the long day's loss, 
The cedar's shadow, slow and still, 
Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss. 

Warm noon brims full the valley's cup, 
The aspen's leaves are scarce astir ; 
Only the little mill sends up 
Its busy, never-ceasing burr. 

Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems 
The road along the mill-pond's brink, 
From 'neath the arching barberry-stems, 
My footstep scares the shy chewink. 

Beneath a bony buttonwood 
The mill's red door lets forth the din ; 
The whitened miller, dust-imbued, 
Flits past the square of dark within. 

No mountain torrent's strength is here ; 
Sweet Beaver, child of forest still, 



Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, 
And gently waits the miller's will. 

Swift slips Undine along the race 
Unheard, and then, with flashing bound, 
Floods the dull wheel with light and 

grace, 
And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge 

round. 

The miller dreams not at what cost 
The quivering millstones hum and 

whirl, 
Nor how for every turn are tost 
Armfuls of diamond and of pearl. 

But Summer cleared my happier eyes 
With drops of some celestial juice, 
To see how Beauty underlies, 
Forevermore each form of use. 

And more ; methought I saw that flood, 
Which now so dull and darkling steals, 
Thick, here and there, with human 

blood, 
To turn the world's laborious wheels. 

No more than doth the miller there, 
Shut in our several cells, do we 
Know with what waste of beauty rare 
Moves every day's machinery. 

Surely the wiser time shall come 
When this fine overplus of might, 
No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, 
Shall leap to music and to light. 

In that new childhood of the Earth 
Life of itself shall dance and play, 
Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make 

mirth, 
And labor meet delight half-way. 



KOSSUTH. — TO LAMABTINE. 



101 



MEMORIAL VERSES. 



KOSSUTH. 

A race of nobles may die out, 
A royal line may leave no heir ; 
"Wise Nature sets no guards about 
Her pewter plate and wooden ware. 

But they fail not, the kinglier breed, 
Who starry diadems attain ; 
To dungeon, axe, and stake succeed 
Heirs of the old heroic strain. 

The zeal of Nature never cools, 
Nor is she thwarted of her ends ; 
When gapped and dulled her cheaper 

tools, 
Then she a saint and prophet spends. 

Land of the Magyars ! though it be 
The tyrant may relink his chain, 
Already thine the victory, 
As the just Future measures gain. 

Thou hast succeeded, thou hast won 
The deathly travail's amplest worth ; 
A nation's duty thou hast done, 
Giving a hero to our earth. 

And he, let come what will of woe, 
Hath saved the land he strove to save; 
No Cossack hordes, no traitor's blow, 
Can quench the voice shall haunt his 
grave. 

" I Kossuth am : Future, thou 
That clear' st the just and blott'st the 

vile, 
O'er this small dust in reverence bow, 
Remembering what I was erewhile. 

"I was the chosen trump wherethrough 
Our God sent forth awakening breath ; 
Came chains ? Came death ? The strain 

He blew 
Sounds on, outliving chains and death." 



TO LAMAHTINE. 

1848. 

I did not praise thee when the crowd, 
' Witched with the moment's inspi- 
ration, 
Vexed thy still ether with hosannas loud, 
And stamped their dusty adoration ; 
I but looked upward with the rest, 
And, when they shouted Greatest, whis- 
pered Best. 

They raised thee not, but rose to thee, 
Their fickle wreaths about thee fling- 
ing; 
So on some marble Phoebus the high sea 
Might leave his worthless seaweed 
clinging, 
But pious hands, with reverent care, 
Make the pure limbs once more sub- 
limely bare. 

Now thou 'rt thy plain, grand self again, 
Thou art secure from panegyric, — 
Thou who gav'st politics an epic strain, 
And actedst Freedom's noblest 
lyric ; 
This side the Blessed Isles, no tree 
Grows green enough to make a wreath 
for thee. 

Nor can blame cling to thee ; the snow 
From swinish footprints takes no 
staining, 
But, leaving the gross soils of earth be- 
low, 
Its spirit mounts, the skies regain- 
ing. 
And unresentful falls again, 
To beautify the world with dews and 
rain. 

The highest duty to mere man vouch- 
safed 
Was laid on thee, — out of wild 
chaos, 



102 



MEMORIAL VERSES. 



When the roused popular ocean foamed 
and chafed, 
And vulture War from his Imaus 
Snuffed blood, to summon homely 
Peace, 
And show that only order is release. 

To carve thy fullest thought, what 
though 
Time was not granted? Aye in 
history, 
Like that Dawn's face which baffled 
Angelo 
Left shapeless, grander for its mys- 
tery, 
Thy great Design shall stand, and day 
Flood its blind front from Orients far 
away. 

Who says thy day is o'er ? Control, 

My heart, that bitter first emotion ; 
While men shall reverence the steadfast 
soul, 
The heart in silent self-devotion 
Breaking, the mild, heroic mien, 
Thou 'It need no prop of marble, Lainar- 
tine. 

If France reject thee, 't is not thine, 

But her own, exile that she utters ; 
Ideal France, the deathless, the divine, 
Will be where thy white pennon 
flutters, 
As once the nobler Athens went 
With Aristides into banishment. 

"No fitting metewand hath To-day 

For measuring spirits of thy stat- 
ure ; 
Only the Future can reach up to lay 
The laurel on that lofty nature, 
Bard, who with some diviner art 
Hast touched the bard's true lyre, a na- 
tion's heart. 

Swept by thy hand, the gladdened 
chords, 
Crashed now in discords fierce by 
others, 
Gave forth one note beyond all skill of 
words, 
And chimed together, We are broth- 
ers. 
poem unsurpassed ! it ran 
All round the world, unlocking man to 
man. 



France is too poor to pay alone 

The service of that ample spirit ; 
Paltry seem low dictatorship and throne, 
If balanced with thy simple merit. 
They had to thee been rust and loss ; 
Thy aim was higher, — thou hast climbed 
a Cross ! 



TO JOHN G. PALFREY. 

There are who triumph in a losing 
cause, 
Who can put on defeat, as 't were a 

wreath 
Unwithering in the adverse popular 
breath, 
Safe from the blasting demagogue's 

applause ; 
'T is they who stand for Freedom and 
God's laws. 

And so stands Palfrey now, as Marvell 

stood, 
Loyal to Truth dethroned, nor could be 
wooed 
To trust the playful tiger's velvet 
paws : 
And if the second Charles brought in 
decay 
Of ancient virtue, if it well might 
wring 
Souls that had broadened 'neath a 
nobler day, 
To see a losel, marketable king 
Fearfully watering with his realm's best 
blood 
Cromwell's quenched bolts, that erst 
had cracked and flamed, 
Scaring, through all their depths of 
courtier mud, 
Europe's crowned bloodsuckers, — 
how more ashamed 
Ought we to be, who see Corruption's 
flood 
Still rise o'er last year's mark, to 

mine away 
Our brazen idols' feet of treacherous 
clay ! 

utter degradation ! Freedom turned 
Slavery's vile bawd, to cozen and be- 
tray 
To the old lecher's clutch a maiden 
prey, 
If so a loathsome pander's fee be 
earned ! 



TO W. L. GARRISOK. 



103 



And we are silent, — we who daily 
tread 
A soil sublime, at least, with heroes' 
graves ! — 
Beckon no more, shades of the noble 
dead ! 
Be dumb, ye heaven-touched lips of 
winds and waves ! 
Or hope to rouse some Coptic dullard, 
hid 
Ages ago, wrapt stiffly, fold on fold, 
With cerements close, to wither in the 
cold 
Forever hushed, and sunless pyramid ! 

Beauty and Truth, and all that these 

contain, 
Drop not like ripened fruit about our 

feet ; 
We climb to them through years of 

sweat and pain ; 
Without long struggle, none did e'er 

attain 
The downward look from Quiet's bliss- 
ful seat : 
Though present loss may be the hero's 

part, 
Yet none can rob him of the victor 

heart 
Whereby the broad-realmed future is 

subdued, 
And Wrong, which now insults from 

triumph's car, 
Sending her vulture hope to raven 

far, 
Is made unwilling tributary of Good. 

Mother State, how quenched thy 
Sinai fires ! 
Is there none left of thy stanch May- 
flower breed ? 
No spark among the ashes of thy sires, 
Of Virtue's altar-flame the kindling 
seed? 
Are these thy great men, these that 
cringe and creep, 
And writhe through slimy ways to 
place and power ? — 
How long, Lord, before thy wrath 
shall reap 
Our frail-stemmed summer prosper- 
ings in their flower ? 
for one hour of that undaunted 

stock 
That went with Vane and Sydney to 
the block! 



O for a whiff of Naseby, that would 
sweep, 
With its stern Puritan besom, all this 

chaff 
From the Lord's threshing-floor ! Yet 
more than half 
The victory is attained, when one or 
two, 
Through the fool's laughter and the 

traitor's scorn, 
Beside thy sepulchre can bide the 
morn, 
Crucified Truth, when thou shalt rise 
anew. 



TO W. L. GARRISON. 

"Some time afterward, it was reported to me 
by the city officers that they had ferreted out 
the paper and its editor ; that his office was an 
obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro 
boy, and his supporters a few very insignifi- 
cant persons of all colors. " — Letter of H. G. 
Otis. 

In a small chamber, friendless and un- 
seen, 
Toiled o'er his types one poor, un- 
learned young man; 
The place was dark, unfurnitured, and 
mean ; — 
Yet there the freedom of a race began. 

Help came but slowly ; surely no man 
yet 
Put lever to the heavy world with 
less: 
What need of help ? He knew how 
types were set, 
He had a dauntless spirit, and a 
press. 

Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, 
The compact nucleus, round which 
systems grow ! 
Mass after mass becomes inspired there- 
with, 
And whirls impregnate with the cen- 
tral glow. 

Truth ! Freedom ! how are ye still 
born 
In the rude stable, in the manger 
nursed ! 
What humble hands unbar those gates 
of morn 
Through which the splendors of the 
New Day burst ! 



104 



MEMORIAL VERSES. 



What! shall one monk, scarce known 
beyond his cell, 
Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and 
scorn her frown ? 
Brave Luther answered Yes ; that thun- 
der's swell 
Rocked Europe, and discharmed the 
triple crown. 

Whatever can be known of earth we 
know, 
Sneered Europe's wise men, in their 
snail-shells curled ; 
No ! said one man in Genoa, and that 
No 
Out of the dark created this New 
World. 

Who is it will not dare himself to trust ? 
Who is it hath not strength to stand 
alone ? 
Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward 
must ? 
He and his works, like sand, from 
earth are blown. 

Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, 

look here! 

See one straightforward conscience 

put in pawn 

To win a world ; see the obedient sphere 

By bravery's simple gravitation drawn ! 

Shall we not heed the lesson taught of 
old, 
And by the Present's lips repeated 
still, 
In our own single manhood to be bold, 
Fortressed in conscience and impreg- 
nable will ? 

We stride the river daily at its spring, 
Nor, in our childish thoughtlessness, 
foresee, 
What myriad vassal streams shall trib- 
ute bring, 
How like an equal it shall greet the 
sea. 

small beginnings, ye are great and 
strong, 
Based on a faithful heart and weari- 
less brain ! 
Ye build the future fair, ye conquer 
wrong, 
Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in 
vain. 



ON THE DEATH OF C. T. TORREY. 

Woe worth the hour when it is crime 
To plead the poor dumb bondman's 
cause, 
When all that makes the heart sublime, 
The glorious throbs that conquer time, 
Are traitors to our cruel laws ! 

He strove among God's suffering poor 
One gleam of brotherhood to send ; 
The dungeon oped its hungry door 
To give the truth one martyr more, 
Then shut, — and here behold the 
end ! 

Mother State ! when this was done, 
No pitying throe thy bosom gave ; 

Silent thou saw'st the death-shroud 
spun, 

And now thou givest to thy son 
The stranger's charity, — a grave. 

Must it be thus forever ? No ! 

The hand of God sows not in vain ; 
Long sleeps the darkling seed below, 
The seasons come, and change, and go, 

And all the fields are deep with grain. 

Although our brother lie asleep, 

Man's heart still struggles, still as- 
pires ; 
His grave shall quiver yet, while deep 
Through the brave Bay State's pulses 
leap 
Her ancient energies and fires. 

When hours like this the senses' gush 

Have stilled, and left the spirit room, 
It hears amid the eternal hush 
The swooping pinions' dreadful rush, 
That bring the vengeance and the 
doom ; — 

Not man's brute vengeance, such as rends 

What rivets man to man apart, — 

God cloth not so bring round his ends, 

But waits the ripened time, and sends 

His mercy to the oppressor's heart. 



ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. 
CHANNING. 

I bo not come to weep above thy pall, 
And mourn the dying-out of noble 
powers ; 



ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. CHAINING. 



105 



The poet's clearer eye should see, in all 
Earth's seeming woe, the seed of 
Heaven's flowers. 

Truth needs no champions : in the infi- 
nite deep 
Of everlasting Soul her strength 
abides, 
From Nature's heart her mighty pulses 
leap, 
Through Nature's veins her strength, 
undying, tides. 

Peace is more strong than war, and gen- 
tleness, 
"Where force were vain, makes con- 
quest o'er the wave ; 
And love lives on and hath a power to 
bless, 
When they who loved are hidden in 
the grave. 

The sculptured marble brags of death- 
strewn fields, 
And Glory's epitaph is writ in blood; 
But Alexander now to Plato yields, 
Clarkson will stand where Wellington 
hath stood. 

I watch the circle of the eternal years, 
And read forever in the storied page 
One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, 
and tears, — 
One onward step of Truth from age to 
age. 

The poor are crushed ; the tyrants link 
their chain ; 
The poet sings through narrow dun- 
geon-grates ; 
Man's hope lies quenched ; — and, lo ! 
with steadfast gain 
Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse 
fates. 

Men slay the prophets ; fagot, rack, and 
cross 
Make up the groaning record of the 
past ; 
But Evil's triumphs are her endless loss, 
And sovereign Beauty wins the soul 
at last. 

No power can die that ever wrought for 
Truth ; 
Thereby a law of Nature it became, 



And lives unwithered in its sinewy 
youth, 
When he who called it forth is but a 



Therefore I cannot think thee wholly 
gone ; 
The better part of thee is with us 
still ; 
Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath 
thrown, 
And only freer wrestles with the 111. 

Thou livest in the life of all good things ; 
What words thou spak'st for Freedom 
shall not die ; 
Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath 
wings 
To soar where hence thy Hope could 
hardly fly. 

And often, from that other world, on 

this 
Some gleams from great souls gone 

before may shine, 

d on 

bliss, 
And clothe the Eight with lustre more 

divine. 

Thou art not idle : in thy higher sphere 
Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks, 

And strength to perfect what it dreamed 
of here 
Is all the crown and glory that it asks. 

For sure, in Heaven's wide chambers, 
there is room 
For love and pity, and for helpful 
deeds ; 
Else were our summons thither but a 
doom 
To life more vain than this in clayey 
weeds. 

From off the starry mountain-peak of 
song, 
Thy spirit shows me, in the coming 
time, 
An earth unwithered by the foot of 
wrong, 
A race revering its own soul sublime. 

What wars, what martyrdoms, what 
crimes, may come, 
Thou knowest not, nor I ; but God 
will lead 



106 



MEMORIAL VERSES. 



The prodigal soul from want and sorrow 
home, 
And Eden ope her gates to Adam's 
seed. 

Farewell ! good man, good angel now ! 
this hand 
Soon, like thine own, shall lose its 
cunning too ; 
Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewil- 
dered stand, 
Then leap to thread the free, unfath- 
omed blue : 

When that day comes, 0, may this hand 
grow cold, 
Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the 
Right ; 
0, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold 
To face dark Slavery's encroaching 
blight ! 

This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier ; 
Let worthier hands than these thy 
wreath intwine ; 
Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear, — 
For us weep rather thou in calm di- 
vine ! 
1842. 

TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD. 

Another star 'neath Time's horizon 
dropped, 
To gleam o'er unknown lands and 
seas ; 
Another heart that beat for freedom 
stopped, — 
What mournful words are these ! 

Love Divine, that claspest our tired 
earth, 
And lullest it upon thy heart, 



Thou knowest how much a gentle soul 
is worth 
To teach men what thou art ! 

His was a spirit that to all thy poor 
Was kind as slumber after pain: 

Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep 
Quiet's door 
And call him home again 1 

Freedom needs all her poets : it ib tne^ 
Who give her aspirations wings, 

And to the wiser law of music sway 
Her wild imaginings. 

Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou 
unkind, 
Love Divine, for 't is thy will 
That gracious natures leave their love 
behind 
To work for Freedom still. 

Let laurelled marbles weigh on other 
tombs, 
Let anthems peal for other dead, 
Rustling the bannered depth of minster- 
glooms 
With their exulting spread. 

His epitaph shall mock the short-lived 
stone, 
No lichen shall its lines efface, 
He needs these few and simple lines 
alone 
To mark his resting-place : — 

"Here lies a Poet. Stranger, if to 

thee 
His claim to memory be obscure, 
If thou wouldst learn how truly great 

was he, 
Go, ask it of the poor." 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 



107 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 



PRELUDE TO PART FIRST. 

Over his keys the musing organist, 

Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
First lets his ringers wander as they list, 
And builds a bridge from Dreamland 
for his lay : 
Then, as the touch of his loved instru- 
ment 
Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws 
his theme, 
First guessed by faint auroral flushes 
sent 
Along the wavering vista of his dream. 



JSTot only around our infancy 
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; 
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 
"We Sinais climb and know it not. 

Over our manhood bend the skies ; 

Against our fallen and traitor lives 
The great winds utter prophecies ; 

With our faint hearts the mountain 
strives ; 
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite ; 
And to our age's drowsy blood 

Still shouts the inspiring sea. 

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives 
us ; 
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die 
in, 
The priest hath his fee who comes and 
shrives us, 
We bargain for the graves we lie in ; 
At the devil's booth are all things sold, 
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of 
gold ; 
For a cap and bells our lives we pay, 
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's 
tasking : 
'T is heaven alone that is given away, 
'T is only God may be had for the ask- 
ing ; 



No price is set on the lavish summer ; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 

And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in 
tune, 
And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and 
towers, 
And, groping blindly above it for light, 
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 
The buttercup catches the sun in its 
chalice, 
And there 's never a leaf nor a blade too 
mean 
To be some happy creature's palace ; 
The little bird sits at his door in the 
sun, 
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
And lets his illumined being o'errun 

With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her 

wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast nutters 

and sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to 

her nest, — 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is 
the best? 

Now is the high-tide of the year, 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 

Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, 

Into every bare inlet and creek and 

bay; 
Now the heart is so full that a drop 

overfills it, 
We are happy now because God wills it ; 
No matter how barren the past may 

have been, 



108 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 



*T is enough for us now that the leaves 

are green ; 
We sit in the warm shade and feel right 

well 
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms 

swell ; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot 

help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is grow- 
ing ; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear, 
That dandelions are blossoming near, 
That maize has sprouted, that streams 

are flowing, 
That the river is bluer than the sky, 
That the robin is plastering his house 

hard by; 
And if the breeze kept the good news 

back, 
For other couriers we should not lack ; 
We could guess it all by yon heifer's 

lowing, — 
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer, 
Warmed with the new wine of the year, 
Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; 
Everything is happy now, 

Everything is upward striving ; 
'T is as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be 
blue, — 
'T is the natural way of living : 
Who knows whither the clouds have 
fled? 
In the unscarred heaven they leave no 
wake ; 
And the eyes forget the tears they have 
shed, 
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; 
The soul partakes the season's youth, 
And the sulphurous rifts of passion 
and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and 
smooth, 
Like burnt-out craters healed with 
snow. 
What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
Remembered the keeping of his vow ? 



PART FIRST. 



" My golden spurs now bring to me, 

And bring to me my richest mail, 

For to-morrow I go over land and sea 



In search of the Holy Grail ; 

Shall never a bed for me be spread, 

Nor shall a pillow be under my head, 

Till I begin my vow to keep ; 

Here on the rushes will I sleep, 

And perchance there may come a vision 
true 

Ere day create the world anew." 
Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, 
Slumber fell like a cloud on him, 

And into his soul the vision flew. 



The crows flapped over by twos and 

threes, 
In the pool drowsed the cattle up to 
their knees, 
The little birds sang as if it were 
The one day of summer in all the year, 
And the very leaves seemed to sing on 

the trees : 
The castle alone in the landscape lay 
Like an outpost of winter, dull and 

gray: 
'T was the proudest hall in the North 

Countree, 
And never its gates might opened be, 
Save to lord or lady of high degree ; 
Summer besieged it on every side, 
But the churlish stone her assaults de- 
lied; 
She could not scale the chilly wall, 
Though around it for leagues her pa- 
vilions tall 
Stretched left and right, 
Over the hills and out of sight ; 
Green and broad was every tent, 
And out of each a murmur went 
Till the breeze fell off at night. 



The drawbridge dropped with a surly 

clang, 
And through the dark arch a charger 

sprang, 
Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, 
In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
It seemed the dark castle had gathered 

all 
Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over 

its wall 
In his siege of three hundred summers 

long, 
And, binding them all in one blazing 

sheaf, 
Had cast them forth : so, young and 

strong, 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 



109 



And lightsome as a locust-leaf, 

Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred 

mail, 
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 

IV. 

It was morning on hill and stream and 
tree, 
And morning in the young knight's 
heart ; 
Only the castle moodily 
Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 

And gloomed by itself apart ; 
The season brimmed all other things up 
Full as the rain rills the pitcher-plant's 
cup. 

v. 

As Sir Launfal made morn through the 
darksome gate, 
He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by 
the same, 
Who begged with his hand and moaned 
as he sate ; 
And a loathing over Sir Launfal came ; 
The sunshine went out of his soul with 
a thrill, 
The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink 
and crawl, 
And midway its leap his heart stood still 

Like a frozen waterfall ; 
For this man, so foul and bent of stature, 
Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, 
And seemed the one blot on the summer 

morn, — 
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 



The leper raised not the gold from the 

dust : 
" Better to me the poor man's crust, 
Better the blessing of the poor, 
Though I turn me empty from his door ; 
That is no true alms which the hand 

can hold ; 
He gives nothing but worthless gold 

Who gives from a sense of duty ; 
But he who gives but a slender mite, 
And gives to that which is out of sight, 
That thread of the all-sustaining 

Beauty 
Which runs through all and doth all 

unite, — 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his 

alms, 
The heart outstretches its eager palms, 



For a god goes with it and makes it 
store 

To the soul that was starving in dark- 
ness before. " 



PRELUDE TO PART SECOND. 

Down swept the chill wind from the 
mountain peak, 
From the snow live thousand summers 
old; 

On open wold and hill-top bleak 
It had gathered all the cold, 

And whirled it like sleet on the wan- 
derer's cheek ; 

It carried a shiver everywhere 

From the unleafed boughs and pastures 
bare; 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'Neath which he could house him, win- 
ter-proof; 

All night by the white stars' frosty 
gleams 

He groined his arches and matched his 
beams ; 

Slender and clear were his crystal spars 

As the lashes of light that trim the 
stars : 

He sculptured every summer delight 

In his halls and chambers out of sight ; 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 

Down through a frost-leaved forest- 
crypt, 

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed 
trees 

Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 

But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 

Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; 

Sometimes it was simply smooth and 
clear 

For the gladness of heaven to shine 
through, and here 

He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 

And hung them thickly with diamond 
drops, 

That crystalled the beams of moon and 
sun, 

And made a star of every one : 

No mortal builder's most rare device 

Could match this winter-palace of ice ; 

'T was as if every image that mirrored 
lay 

In his depths serene through the sum- 
mer day, 



110 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 



Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, 
Lest the happy model should be lost, 

Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 
By the elfin builders of the frost. 

Within the hall are song and laughter, 
The cheeks of Christmas glow red and 

jolty* 
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 
With lightsome green of ivy and holly ; 
Through the deep gulf of the chimney 

wide 
Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 
And belly and tug as a flag in the 
wind ; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 
Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 
And swift little troops of silent sparks, 
Now pausing, now scattering away as 
in fear, 
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled 
darks 
Like herds of startled deer. 

But the w T ind without was eager and 

sharp, 
Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, 
And rattles and wrings 
The icy strings, 
Singing, in dreary monotone, 
A Christmas carol of its own, 
Whose burden still, as he might guess, 
Was — "Shelterless, shelterless, shel- 
terless ! " 
The voice of the seneschal flared like a 

to^ch 
As he shouted the wanderer away from 

the porch, 
And he sat in the gateway and saw all 
night 
The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 
Through the window-slits of the cas- 
tle old, 
Build out its piers of ruddy light 
Against the drift of the cold. 



PART SECOND. 

I. 

There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 
The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; 
The river was dumb and could not speak, 
For the weaver Winter its shroud had 
spun; 



A single crow on the tree-top bleak 
From his shining feathers shed off the 
cold sun ; 
Again it was morning, but shrunk and 

cold, 
As if her veins were sapless and old, 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 



Sir Launfal turned from his own hard 

gate, 
For another heir in his earldom sate ; 
An old, bent man, worn out and frail, 
He came back from seeking the Holy 

Grail ; 
Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 
No more on his surcoat was blazoned the 

cross, 
But deep in his soul the sign he wore, 
The badge of the suffering and the poor. 



Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, 
For it was just at the Christinas time ; 
So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier 

clime, 
And sought for a shelter from cold and 

snow 
In the light and warmth of long-ago ; 
He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 
O'er the edge of the desert, black and 

small, 
Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 
He can count the camels in the sun, 
As over the red-hot sands they pass 
To where, in its slender necklace of grass, 
The little spring laughed and leapt in 

the shade, 
And with its own self like an infant 

played, 
And waved its signal of palms. 

IV. 

" For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an 

alms" ; — 
The happy camels may reach the spring, 
But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome 

thing, 
The leper, lank as the rain-blanched 

bone, 
That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 
And white as the ice -isles of Northern 

seas 
In the desolate horror of his disease. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 



Ill 



And Sir Launfal said, — "I behold in 

thee 
An image of Him who died on the tree; 
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 
Thou also hast had the world's buffets and 

scorns, — 
And to thy life were not denied 
The wounds in the hands and feet and 

side : 
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 
Behold, through him, I give to thee ! " 



Then the soul of the leper stood up in his 

eyes 
And looked at Sir Launfal, and 

straightway he 
Remembered in what a haughtier guise 

He had flung an alms to leprosie, 
"When he girt his young life up in gilded 

mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
The heart within him was ashes and dust ; 
He parted in twain his single crust, 
He broke the ice on the streamlet's 

brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink, 
'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown 

bread, 
'T was water out of a wooden bowl, — 
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper 

fed, 
And 't was red wine he drank with his 

thirsty soul. 

VII. 

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast 

face, 
A light shone round about the place ; 
The leper no longer crouched at his side, 
But stood before him glorified, 
Shining and tall and fair and straight 
As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful 

Gate, — 
Himself the Gate whereby men can 
Enter the temple of God in Man. 

VIII. 

His words were shed softer than leaves 

from the pine, 
And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on 

the brine, 
That mingle their softness and quiet in 

one 



With the shaggy unrest they float down 

upon; 
And the voice that was calmer than 

silence said, 
" Lo it is I, be not afraid ! 
In many climes, without avail, 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy 

Grail; 
Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 
Didst fill, at the streamlet for me but now ; 
This crust is my body broken for thee, 
This water His blood that died on the 

tree; 
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
In what so we share with another's need % 
Not what we give, but what we share, — . 
For the gift without the giver is bare ; 
Who gives himself with his alms feeds 

three, — 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and 

me." 

IX. 

Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound : - — 
' ' The Grail in my castle here is found ! 
Hang my idle armor up on the wall, 
Let it be the spider's banquet-hall ; 
He must be fenced with stronger mail 
Who would seek and find the Holy 
Grail." 

x. 

The castle gate stands open now, 

And the wanderer is welcome to the 

hall 
As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough ; 

No longer scowl the turrets tall, 
The Summer's long siege at last is o'er ; 
When the first poor outcast went in at 

the door, 
She entered with him in disguise, 
And mastered the fortress by surprise ; 
There is no spot she loves so well on 

ground, 
She lingers and smiles there the whole 

year round ; 
The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land 
Has hall and bower at his command ; 
And there 's no poor man in the North 

Countree 
But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 



NOTE. — According to the mythology of the 
Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was 
the cup out of which Jesus partook of the last 
supper with his disciples. It was brought into 
England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained 
there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, 



112 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 



for many years in the keeping of his lineal de- 
scendants. It was incumbent upon those who 
had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, 
and deed; but one of the keepers having 
broken this condition, the Holy Grail disap- 
peared. From that time it was a favorite enter- 
prise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in 
search of it. Sir Galahad was at last success- 
ful in finding it, as may be read in the seven- 
teenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. 



Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of 
one of the most exquisite of his poems. 

The plot (if I may give that name to anything 
so slight) of the foregoing poem is my own, and, 
to serve its purposes, I have enlarged the circle 
of competition in search of the miraculous cup 
in such a manner as to include, not only other 
persons than the heroes of the Round Table, 
but also a period of time subsequent to the 
date of King Arthur's reign ! 




Reader ! walk up at once (it will soon be too late) 
and buy at a perfectly ruinous rate 



FABLE FOR CRITICS; 

OR, BETTER, 

(/ like, as a thing that the reader's first fancy may strike } 

an old-fashioned title-page, 

such as presents a tabular view of the volume's contents,) 

A GLANCE 

AT A FEW OF OUR LITERARY PROGENIES 
{Mrs. Malapropos word) 

FROM 

THE TUB OF DIOGENES; 

A VOCAL AND MUSICAL MEDLEY, 

THAT IS, 

A SERIES OF JOKES 

2Sfi % WLnxCStxiViX <&ttf|, 

who accompanies himself with a rub-a-dub-dub, full of spirit and grace, 
on the top of the tub. 



Set forth in October, the 31st day, 

In the year '48, G. P. Putnam, Broadway. 



TO 

CHARLES F. BRIGGS, 

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



115 



It being the commonest mode of proced- 
ure, I premise a few candid remarks 

To the Reader : — 

This trifle, begun to please only myself 
and my own private fancy, was laid on the 
shelf. But some friends, who had seen it, 
induced me, by dint of saying they liked 
it, to put it in print. That is, having 
come to that very conclusion, I consulted 
them when it could make no confusion. 
For (though in the gentlest of ways) they 
had hinted it was scarce worth the while, 
I should doubtless have printed it. 

I began it, intending a Fable, a frail, 
slender thing, rhyme-y winged, with a sting 
in its tail. But, by addings and alter- 
in gs not previously planned, — digressions 
chance-hatched, like birds' eggs in the 
sand, — and dawdlings to suit every whim- 
sey's demand (always freeing the bird 
which I held in my hand, for the two 
perched, perhaps out of reach, in the tree), 
— it grew by degrees to the size which you 
see. I was like the old woman that car- 
ried the calf, and my neighbors, like hers, 
no doubt, wonder and laugh, and when, 
my strained arms with their grown bur- 
then full, I call it my Fable, they call it a 
bull. 

Having scrawled at full gallop (as far as 
that goes) in a style that is neither good 
verse nor bad prose, and being a person 
whom nobody knows, some people will 
say I am rather more free with my readers 
-than it is becoming to be, that I seem to 
expect them to wait on my leisure in fol- 
lowing wherever I wander at pleasure, 
that, in short, I take more than a young 
author's lawful ease, and laugh in a queer 
way so like Mephistopheles, that the pub- 
lic will doubt, as they grope through my 
rhythm, if in truth I am making fun at 
them or with them. 

So the excellent Public is hereby as- 
sured that the sale of my book is already 
secured. For there is not a poet through- 
out the whole land but will purchase a 
copy or two . out of hand, in the fond ex- 
pectation of being amused in it, by seeing 
his betters cut up and abused in it. Now, 
I find, by a pretty exact calculation, there 
are something like ten thousand bards in 



the nation, of that special variety whom 
the Review and Magazine critics call lofty 
and true, and about thirty thousand {this 
tribe is increasing) of the kinds who are 
termed full of promise and pleasing. The 
Public will see by a glance at this sched- 
ule, that they cannot expect me to be over- 
sedulous about courting them, since it 
seems I have got enough fuel made sure of 
for boiling my pot. 

As for such of our poets as find not 
their names mentioned once in my pages, 
with praises or blames, let them send in 
their cards, without further delay, to 
my friend G. P. Putnam, Esquire, in 
Broadway, where a list will be kept with 
the strictest regard to the day and the 
hour of receiving the card. Then, taking 
them up as I chance to have time (that is, 
if their names can be twisted in rhyme), 
I will honestly give each his proper po- 
sition, at the rate of one author to each 
new edition. Thus a PREMIUM is of- 
fered sufficiently high (as the magazines 
say when they tell their best lie) to induce 
bards to club their resources and buy the 
balance of every edition, until they have 
all of them fairly been run through the 
mill. 

One word to such readers (judicious and 
wise) as read books with something behind 
the mere eyes, of whom in the country, 
perhaps, there are two r including myself, 
gentle reader, and you. All the characters 
sketched in this slight jeucV esprit, though, 
it may be, they seem, here and there, 
rather free, and drawn from a Mephisto- 
phelian standpoint, are meant to be faith- 
ful, and that is the grand point, and none 
but an owl would feel sore at a rub from 
a jester who tells you, without any subter- 
fuge, that he sits in Diogenes' tub. 



A PRELIMINARY NOTE TO THE 
SECOND EDITION, 

though it well maybe reckoned, of all com- 
position, the species at once most delight- 
ful and healthy, is a thing which an au- 
thor, unless he be wealthy and willing to 



116 



A TABLE FOR CRITICS. 



pay for that kind of delight, is not, in all 
instances, called on to write. Though 
there are, it is said, who, their spirits to 
cheer, slip in a new title-page three times 
a year, and in this way snuff np an imagi- 
nary savor of that sweetest of dishes, the 
popular favor, — much as if a starved 
painter should fall to and treat the Ugo- 
lino inside to a picture of meat. 

You remember (if not, pray turn over 
and look) that, in writing the preface which 
ushered my book, I treated you, excel- 
lent Public, not merely with a cool disre- 
gard, but downright cavalierly. Now I 
would not take back the least thing I then 
said, though I thereby could butter both 
sides of my bread, for I never could see 
that an author owed aught to the people 
he solaced, diverted, or taught ; and, as 
for mere fame, I have long ago learned 
that the persons by whom it is finally 
earned are those with whom your verdict 
weighed not a pin, unsustained by the 
higher court sitting within. 

But I wander from what I intended to 
say, — that you have, namely, shown such 
a liberal way of thinking, and so much 
gesthetic perception of anonymous worth 
in the handsome reception you gave to my 
book, spite of some private piques (having 
bought the first thousand in barely two 
weeks), that I think, past a doubt, if you 
measured the phiz of yours most devotedly, 
Wonderful Quiz, you would find that its 
vertical section was shorter, by an inch 
and two tenths, or 'twixt that and a 
quarter. 

You have watched a child playing — in 
those wondrous years when belief is not 
bound to the eyes and the ears, . and the 
vision divine is so clear and unmarred, 
that each baker of pies in the dirt is a 
bard ? Give a knife and a shingle, he fits 
out a fleet, and, on that little mud-puddle 
over the street, his invention, in purest 
good faith, will make sail round the globe 
with a puff of his breath for a gale, will 
visit in barely ten minutes, all climes, and 
find Northwestern passages hundreds of 
times. Or, suppose the young Poet fresh 
stored with delights from that Bible of 
childhood, the Arabian Nights, he will turn 
to a crony and cry, "Jack, let's play that 
I am a Genius ! " Jacky straightway makes 
Aladdin's lamp out of a stone, and, for 
hours, they enjoy each his own supernat- 
ural powers. This is all very pretty and 
pleasant, but then suppose our two ur- 
chins have grown into men, and both have 
turned authors, — one says to his brother, 
"Let's play we're the American some- 
things or other, — say Homer or Sopho- 
cles, Goethe or Scott (only let them be 



big enough, no matter what). Come, you 
shall be Byron or Pope, which you choose : 
I '11 be Coleridge, and both shall write 
mutual reviews." So they both (as mere 
strangers) before many days send each 
other a cord of anonymous bays. Each, 
piling his epithets, smiles in his sleeve 
to see what his friend can be made to be- 
lieve ; each, reading the other's unbiassed 
review, thinks — Here 's pretty high praise, 
but no more than is true. Well, we laugh 
at them both, and yet make no great fuss 
when the same farce is acted to benefit us. 
Even I, who, if asked, scarce a month 
since, what Fudge meant, should have an- 
swered, the dear Public's critical judg- 
ment, begin to think sharp-witted Horace 
spoke sooth when he said, that the Public 
sometimes hit the truth. 

In reading these lines, you perhaps have 
a vision of a person in pretty good health 
and condition, and yet, since I put forth 
my primary edition, I have been crushed, 
scorched, withered, used up and put down 
(by Smith with the cordial assistance of 
Brown ), in all, if you put any faith in my 
rhymes, to the number of ninety-five sev- 
eral times, and, while I am writing, — I 
tremble to think of it, for I may at this 
moment be just on the brink of it, — Mo- 
lybdostom, angry at being omitted, has 
begun a critique, — am I not to be 
pitied?* 

Now I shall not crush them since, in- 
deed, for that matter, no pressure I know 
of could render them flatter ; nor wither, 
nor scorch them, — no action of fire could 
make either them or their articles drier ; 
nor waste time in putting them down — 
I am thinking not their own self-inflation 
will keep them from sinking ; for there 's 
this contradiction about the whole bevy, — 
though without the least weight, they are 
awfully heavy. No, my dear honest bore, 
surdo fabulam narras, they are no more 
to me than a rat in the arras. I can walk 
with the Doctor, get facts from the Don, 
or draw out the Lambish quintessence of 
John, and feel nothing more than a half- 
comic sorrow, to think that they all will 
be lying to-morrow tossed carelessly up on 
the waste-paper shelves, and forgotten by 
all but their half-dozen selves. Once snug 
in my attic, my fire in a roar, I leave the 
whole pack of them outside the door. 
With Hakluyt or Purchas I wander away 
to the black northern seas or barbaric 
Cathay ; get fou with O'Shanter, and sober 
me then with that builder of brick-kilnish 

* The wise Scandinavians probably called 
their bards by the queer-looking title of Scald, 
in a delicate way, as it were, just to hint to th© 
world the hot water they always get into. 



A FABLE FOE CRITICS. 



117 



dramas, rare Ben ; snuff Herbert, as holy 
as a flower on a grave ; with Fletcher wax 
tender, o'er Chapman grow brave ; with 
Marlowe or Kyd take a tine poet-rave ; in 
Very, most Hebrew of Saxons, find peace ; 
with Lycidas welter on vext Irish seas ; 
with Webster grow wild, and climb earth- 
ward again, down by mystical Browne's 
Jacob's-ladder-like brain, to that spiritual 
Pepys (Cotton's version) Montaigne ; find 
a new depth in Wordsworth, undreamed 
of before, — that divinely inspired, wise, 
deep, tender, grand — bore. Or, out of 
my study, the scholar thrown off, Nature 
holds up her shield 'gainst the sneer and 
the scoff ; the landscape, forever consoling 
and kind, pours her wine and her oil on 
the smarts of the mind. The waterfall, 
scattering its vanishing gems ; the tall 
grove of hemlocks, with moss on their 
stems, like plashes of sunlight ; the pond 
in the woods, where no foot but mine and 
the bittern's intrudes ; these are all my 
kind neighbors, and leave me no wish to 
say aught to you all, my poor critics, but 
— pish ! I have buried the hatchet : I am 
twisting an allumette out of one of you 
now, and relighting my calumet. In your 
private capacities, come when you please, 
I will give you my hand and a fresh pipe 
apiece. 

As I ran through the leaves of my poor 
little book, to take a fond author's first 
tremulous look, it was quite an excitement 
to hunt the errata, sprawled in as birds' 
tracks are in some kinds of strata (only 
these made things crookeder). Fancy an 
heir that a father had seen born well-fea- 
tured and fair, turning suddenly wry-nosed, 
club-footed, squint-eyed, hair-lipped, wap- 
per-jawed, carrot-haired, from a pride be- 
come an aversion, — my case was yet worse. 
A club-foot (by way of a change) in a verse, 



I might have forgiven, an o's being wry, 
a limp in an e, or a cock in an i, — but to 
have the sweet babe of my brain served in 
pi! I am not queasy-stomached, but such 
a Thyestean banquet as that was quite out 
of the question. 

In the edition now issued, no pains are 
neglected, and my verses, as orators say, 
stand corrected. Yet some blunders re- 
main of the public's own make, which I 
wish to correct for my personal sake. 
For instance, a character drawn in pure 
fun and condensing the traits of a dozen 
in one, has been, as I hear, by some per- 
sons applied to a good friend of mine, 
whom to stab in the side, as -we walked 
along chatting and joking together, would 
not be my way. I can hardly tell whether 
a question will ever arise in which he and 
I should by any strange fortune agree, 
but meanwhile my esteem for him grows 
as I know him, and, though not the best 
judge on earth of a poem, he knows what 
it is he is saying and why, and is honest 
and fearless, two good points which I 
have not found so rife I can easily smother 
my love for them, whether on my side or 
t' other. 

For my other anonymi, you may be sure 
that I know what is meant by a carica- 
ture, and what by a portrait. There are 
those who think it is capital fun to be 
spattering their ink on quiet, unquarrel- 
some folk, but the minute the game 
changes sides and the others begin it, they 
see something savage and horrible in it. 
As for me I respect neither women nor 
men for their gender, nor own any sex in 
a pen. I choose just to hint to some 
causeless unfriends that, as far as I know, 
there are always two ends (and one of 
them heaviest, too) to a staff, and two 
parties also to every good laugh. 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



Phcebus, sitting one day in a laurel- 
tree's shade, 
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it 

was made, 
For the god being one day too warm in 

his wooing, 
She took to the tree to escape his pur- 
suing ; 
Be the cause what it might, from his 

offers she shrunk, 
And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in 

a trunk ; 
And, though 't was a step into which he 

had driven her, 
He somehow or other had never for- 
given her ; 
Her memory he nursed as a kind of 

a tonic, 
Something bitter to chew when he'd 

play the Byronic, 
And I can't count the obstinate nymphs 

that he brought over 
By a strange kind of smile he put on 

when he thought of her. 
" My case is like Dido's," he sometimes 

remarked ; 
""When I last saw my love, she was 

fairly embarked 
In a laurel, as she thought — but (ah, 

how Fate mocks !) 
She has found it by this time a very 

bad box ; 
Let hunters from me take this saw when 

they need it, — 
You're not always sure of your game 

when you 've treed it. 
Just conceive such a change taking place 

in one's mistress ! 
What romance would be left ? — who 

can flatter or kiss trees ? 
And, for mercy's sake, how could one 

keep up a dialogue 
With a dull wooden thing that will live 

and will die a log, — 



Not to say that the thought would for- 
ever intrude 

That you 've less chance to win her the 
more she is wood ? 

Ah ! it went to my heart, and the mem- 
ory still grieves, 

To see those loved graces all taking 
their leaves ; 

Those charms beyond speech, so en- 
chanting but now, 

As they left me forever, each making 
its bough ! 

If her tongue had a tang sometimes 
more than was right, 

Her new bark is worse than ten times 
her old bite." 

!N*ow, Daphne — before she was hap- 
pily treeified — 

Over all other blossoms the lily had 
deified, 

And when she expected the god on a 
visit 

('T was before he had made his inten- 
tions explicit), 

Some buds she arranged with a vast 
deal of care, 

To look as if artlessly twined in her hair, 

Where they seemed, as he said, when 
he paid his addresses, 

Like the day breaking through the long 
night of her tresses ; 

So whenever he wished to be quite irre- 
sistible, 

Like a man with eight trumps in his 
hand at a whist-table 

(I feared me at first that the rlryme was 
untwistable, 

Though I might have lugged in an allu- 
sion to Cristabel), — 

He would take up a lily, and gloomily 
look in it, 

As I shall at the , when they cut 

up my book in it. 



120 



A FABLE FOK CRITICS. 



Well, here, after all the bad rhyme 
I 've been spinning, 

I've got back at last to my story's begin- 
ning : 

Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of 
his mistress, 

As dull as a volume of old Chester mys- 
teries, 

Or as those puzzling specimens which, 
in old histories, 

We read of his verses — the Oracles, 
namely, — 

(I wonder the Greeks should have swal- 
lowed them tamely, 

For one might bet safely whatever he 
has to risk, 

They were laid at his door by some 
ancient Miss Asterisk, 

And so dull that the men who retailed 
them out-doors 

Got the ill name of augurs, because 
they were bores, — ) 

First, he mused what the animal sub- 
stance or herb is 

Would induce a mustache, for you 
know he 's imberbis ; 

Then he shuddered to think how his 
youthful position 

Was assailed by the age of his son the 
physician ; 

At some poems he glanced, had been 
sent to him lately, 

And the metre and sentiment puzzled 
him greatly ; 

"Mehercle! I'd make such proceed- 
ing felonious, — 

Have they all of them slept in the cave 
of Trophonius ? 

Look well to your seat, 't is like taking 
an airing 

On a corduroy road, and that out of re- 
pairing ; 

It leads one, 't is true, through the 
primitive forest, 

Grand natural features, but then one 
has no rest ; 

You just catch a glimpse of some rav- 
ishing distance, 

When a jolt puts the whole of it out of 
existence, — 

Why not use their ears, if they happen 
to have any ? " 

— Here the laurel-leaves murmured the 
name of poor Daphne. 

"0, weep with me, Daphne," he 
sighed, -'for you know it's 



A terrible thing to be pestered with 

poets ! 
But, alas, she is dumb, and the proverb 

holds good, 
She never will cry till she 's out of the 

wood ! 
What would n't I give if I never had 

known of her ? 
'T were a kind of relief had I something 

to groan over : 
If I had but some letters of hers, now, 

to toss over, 
I might turn for the nonce a Byronic 

philosopher, 
And bewitch all the flats by bemoaning 

the loss of her. 
One needs something tangible, though, 

to begin on, — 
A loom, as it were, for the fancy to 

spin on ; 
What boots all your grist ? it can never 

be ground 
Till a breeze makes the arms of the 

windmill go round, 
(Or, if 't is a water-mill, alter the meta- 
phor, 
And say it won't stir, save the wheel be 

well wet afore, 
Or lug in some stuff about water "so 

dreamily," — 
It is not a metaphor, though, 't is a 

simile) ; 
A lily, perhaps", would set my mill 

a-going, 
For just at this season, I think, they 

are blowing. 
Here, somebody, fetch one; not very 

far hence 
They 're in bloom by the score, 't is but 

climbing a fence ; 
There 's a poet hard by, who does noth- 
ing but fill his 
Whole garden, from one end to t' other, 

with lilies ; 
A very good plan, w T ere it not for sati- 
ety, 
One longs for a weed here and there, 

for variety ; 
Though a weed is no more than a flower 

in disguise, 
Which is seen through at once, if love 

give a man eyes." 

Now there happened to be among 
Phoebus' s followers, 
A gentleman, one of the omnivorous 



swallowers. 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



121 



Who bolt every book that comes out of 
the press, 

Without the least question of larger or 
less, 

Whose stomachs are strong at the ex- 
pense of their head, — 

For reading new books is like eating 
new bread, 

One can bear it at first, but by gradual 
steps he 

Is brought to death's door of a mental 
dyspepsy. 

On a previous stage of existence, our 
Hero 

Had ridden outside, with the glass be- 
low zero ; 

He had been, 'tis a fact you may safely 
rely on, 

Of a very old stock a most eminent 
scion, — 

A stock all fresh quacks their fierce 
boluses ply on, 

Who stretch the new boots Earth 's un- 
willing to try on, 

Whom humbugs of all shapes and sorts 
keep their eye on 

Whose hair 's in the mortar of every 
new Zion, 

Who, when whistles are dear, go directly 
and buy one. 

Who think slavery a crime that we 
must not say fie on, 

Who hunt, if they e'er hunt at all, with 
the lion 

(Though they hunt lions also, whenever 
they spy one), 

Who contrive to make every good for- 
tune a wry one, 

And at last choose the hard bed of honor 
to die on, 

Whose pedigree, traced to earth's earli- 
est years, 

Is longer than anything else but their 
ears ; — 

In short, he was sent into life with the 
wrong key, 

He unlocked the door, and stept forth 
a poor donkey. 

Though kicked and abused by his bi- 
pedal betters 

Yet he filled no mean place in the king- 
dom of letters ; 

Far happier than many a literary hack, 

He bore only paper-mill rags on his 
back 

(For it makes a vast difference which 
side the mill 



One expends on the paper his labor and 
skill) ; 

So, when his soul waited a new trans- 
migration, 

And Destiny balanced 'twixt this and 
that station, 

Not having much time to expend upon 
bothers, 

Remembering he 'd had some connec- 
tion with authors, 

And considering his four legs had grown 
paralytic, — 

She set him on two, and he came forth 
a critic. 

Through his babyhood no kind of 
pleasure he took 

In any amusement but tearing a book ; 

For him there was no intermediate stage 

From babyhood up to straight-laced 
middle age ; 

There were years when he did n't wear 
coat-tails behind, 

But a boy he could never be rightly de- 
fined ; 

Like the Irish Good Folk, though in 
length scarce a span, 

From the womb he came gravely, a lit- 
tle old man ; 

While other boys' trousers demanded 
the toil 

Of the motherly fingers on all kinds of 
soil, 

Red, yellow, brown, black, clayey, 
gravelly, loamy, 

He sat in the corner and read Yiri 
Romas. 

He never was known to unbend or to 
revel once 

In base, marbles, hockey, or kick up 
the devil once ; 

He was just one of those who excite the 
benevolence 

Of your old prigs who sound the soul's 
depths with a ledger, 

And are on the lookout for some young 
men to "edger- 

cate," as they call it, who won't be too 
costly, 

And who '11 afterward take to the min- 
istry mostly; 

Who always wear spectacles, always 
look bilious, 

Always keep on good terms with each 
mater-familias 

Throughout the whole parish, and man- 
age to rear 



122 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



Ten boys like themselves, on four hun- 
dred a year : 

Who, fulfilling in turn the same fearful 
conditions, 

Either preach through their noses, or go 
upon missions. 

In this way our hero got safely to col- 
lege, 

Where he bolted alike both his com- 
mons and knowledge ; 

A reading-machine, always wound up 
and going, 

He mastered whatever was not worth 
the knowing, 

Appeared in a gown, and a vest of black 
satin, 

To spout such a Gothic oration in Latin 

That Tully could never have made out a 
word in it 

(Though himself was the model the au- 
thor preferred in it), 

And grasping the parchment which gave 
him in fee 

All the mystic and-so-forths contained 
in A. B., 

He was launched (life is always com- 
pared to a sea), 

With just enough learning, and skill 
for the using it, 

To prove he 'd a brain, by forever con- 
fusing it. 

So worthy St. Benedict, piously burn- 
ing 

With the holiest zeal against secular 
learning, 

Nesciensque scienter, as writers express 
it, 

Indoctusque sapienter a Roma recessit. 

'T would be endless to tell you the 
things that he knew, 

All separate facts, undeniably true, 

But with him or each other they 'd 
nothing to do ; 

No power of combining, arranging, dis- 
cerning, 

Digested the masses he learned into 
learning ; 

There was one thing in life he had prac- 
tical knowledge for 

(And this, you will think, he need scarce 
go to college for), — 

Not a deed would he do, nor a word 
would he utter, 

Till he 'd weighed its relations to plain 
bread and butter. 



When he left Alma Mater, he practised 

his wits 
In compiling the journals' historical 

bits, — 
Of shops broken open, men falling in 

fits, 
Great fortunes in England bequeathed 

to poor printers, 
And cold spells, the coldest for many 

past winters, — 
Then, rising by industry, knack, and 

address, 
Got notices up for an unbiassed press, 
With a mind so well poised, it seemed 

equally made for 
Applause or abuse, just which chanced 

to be paid for : 
From this point his progress was rapid 

and sure, 
To the post of a regular heavy reviewer. 

And here I must say he wrote excel- 
lent articles 

On the Hebraic points, or the force of 
Greek particles, 

They filled up the space nothing else 
was prepared for; 

And nobody read that which nobody 
cared for ; 

If any old book reached a fiftieth edi- 
tion, 

He could fill forty pages with safe eru- 
dition : 

He could gauge the old books by the old 
set of rules, 

And his very old nothings pleased very 
old fools ; 

But give him a new book, fresh out of 
the heart, 

And you put him at sea without com- 
pass or chart, — 

His blunders aspired to the rank of an 
art ; 

For his lore was engraft, something for- 
eign that grew in him, 

Exhausting the sap of the native and 
true in him, 

So that when a man came with a soul 
that was new in him, 

Carving new forms of truth out of Na- 
ture's old granite, - 

New and old at their birth, like Le 
Verrier's planet, 

Which, to get a true judgment, them- 
selves must create 

In the soul of their critic the measure 
and weight, 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



123 



Being rather themselves a fresh stand- 
ard of grace, 
To compute their own judge, and assign 

him his place, 
Our reviewer would crawl all about it 

and round it, 
And, reporting each circumstance just 

as he found it, 
Without the least malice, — his record 

would be 
Profoundly sesthetic as that of a flea, 
Which, supping on Wordsworth, should 

print, for our sakes, 
Recollections of nights with the Bard of 

the Lakes, 
Or, lodged by an Arab guide, ventured 

to render a 
General view of the ruins at Denderah. 

As I said, he was never precisely un- 
kind, 

The defect in his brain was just absence 
of mind ; 

If he boasted, 't was simply that he was 
self-made, 

A position which I, for one, never gain- 
said, 

My respect for my Maker supposing a 
skill 

In his works which our Hero would an- 
swer but ill ; 

And I trust that the mould which he 
used may be cracked, or he, 

Made bold by success, may enlarge his 
phylactery, 

And set up a kind of a man-manufac- 
tory, — 

An event which I shudder to think 
about, seeing 

That Man is a moral, accountable being. 

He meant well enough, but was still 

in the way, 
As a dunce always is, let him be where 

he may ; 
Indeed, they appear to come into exist- 
ence 
To impede other folks with their awk- 
ward assistance ; 
If you set up a dunce on the very North 

pole 
All alone with himself, I believe, on my 

soul, 
He 'd manage to get betwixt somebody's 

shins, 
And pitch him down bodily, all in his 

sins, 



To the grave polar bears sitting round 
on the ice, 

All shortening their grace, to be in for 
a slice ; 

Or, if he found nobody else there to 
pother, 

Why, one of his legs would just trip up 
the other, 

For there 's nothing we read of in tor- 
ture's inventions, 

Like a well-meaning dunce, with the 
best of intentions. 

A terrible fellow to meet in soci- 
ety, 

Not the toast that he buttered was ever 
so dry at tea ; 

There he 'd sit at the table and stir in 
his sugar, 

Crouching close for a spring, all the 
while, like a cougar ; 

Be sure of your facts, of your measures 
and weights, 

Of your time, — he 's as fond as an Arab 
of dates ; — 

You '11 be telling, perhaps, in your com- 
ical way, 

Of something you 've seen in the course 
of the day ; 

And, just as you 're tapering out the 
conclusion, 

You venture an ill-fated classic allu- 
sion, — 

The girls have all got their laughs ready, 
when, whack ! 

The cougar comes down on your thun- 
derstruck back ! 

You had left out a comma, — your 
Greek 's put in joint, 

And pointed at cost of your story's 
whole point. 

In the course of the evening, you ven- 
ture on certain 

Soft speeches to Anne, in the shade of 
the curtain : 

You tell her your heart can be likened 
to one flower, 

"And that, most charming of wo- 
men 's the sunflower, 

Which turns " — here a clear nasal voice, 
to your terror, 

From outside the curtain, says, " That 's 
all an error." 

As for him, he 's — no matter, he never 
grew tender, 

Sitting after a ball, with his feet on the 
fender, 



124 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



Shaping somebody's sweet features out 

of cigar smoke 
(Though he 'd willingly grant you that 

such doings are smoke) ; 
All women he damns with mutabile 

semper, 
And if ever he felt something like love's 

distemper, 
'T was towards a young lady who spoke 

ancient Mexican, 
And assisted her father in making a lex- 
icon ; 
Though I recollect hearing him get 

quite ferocious 
About Mary Clausum, the mistress of 

Grotius, 
Or something of that sort, — but, no 

more to bore ye 
With character-painting, I '11 turn to 

my story. 

Now, Apollo, who finds it conven- 
ient sometimes 

To get his court clear of the makers of 
rhymes, 

The genus, I think it is called, irritabile, 

Every one of whom thinks himself 
treated most shabbily, 

And nurses a — what is it ? — immedi- 
cabile, 

Which keeps him at boiling-point, hot 
for a quarrel, 

As bitter as wormwood, and sourer than 
sorrel, 

If any poor devil but look at a laurel ; — 

Apollo, I say, being sick of their riot- 
ing 

(Though he sometimes acknowledged 
their verse had a quieting 

Effect after dinner, and seemed to sug- 
gest a 

Retreat to the shrine of a tranquil 
siesta), 

Kept our Hero at hand, who, by means 
of a bray, 

Which he gave to the life, drove the 
rabble away ; 

And if that would n't do, he was sure 
to succeed, 

If he took his review out and offered to 
read ; 

Or, failing in plans of this milder de- 
scription, 

He would ask for their aid to get up a 
subscription, 

Considering that authorship wasn't a 
rich craft, 



To print the " American drama of 
Witchcraft." 

" Stay, I '11 read you a scene," — but he 
hardly began, 

Ere Apollo shrieked " Help ! " and the 
authors all ran : 

And once, when these purgatives acted 
with less spirit, 

And the desperate case asked a remedy 
desperate, 

He drew from his pocket a foolscap 
epistle 

As calmly as if 't were a nine-barrelled 
pistol, 

And threatened them all with the judg- 
ment to come, 

Of "A wandering Star's first impressions 
of Rome." 

"Stop ! stop !" with their hands o'er 
their ears, screamed the Muses, 

* ' He may go off and murder himself, if 
he chooses, 

'T was a means self-defence only sanc- 
tioned his trying, 

'T is mere massacre now that the ene- 
my 's flying ; 

If he 's forced to 't again, and we hap- 
pen to be there, 

Give us each a large handkerchief soaked 
in strong ether." 

I called this a " Fable for Critics " ; 

you think it 's 
More like a display of my rhythmical 

trinkets ; 
My plot, like an icicle, 's slender and 

slippery, 
Every moment more slender, and likely 

to slip awry, 
And the reader unwilling in loco desi- 

pere, 
Is free to jump over as much of my 

frippery 
As he fancies, and, if he 's a provident 

skipper, he 
May have an Odyssean sway of the gales, 
And get safe to port, ere his patience 

quite fails ; 
Moreover, although 't is a slender return 
For your toil and expense, yet my paper 

will burn, 
And, if you have manfully struggled 

thus far with me, 
You may e'en twist me up, and just 

light your cigar with me : 
If too angry for that, you can tear me in 

pieces, 



A FABLE FOE CRITICS. 



125 



And my membra disjecta consign to the 

breezes, 
A fate like great Ratzau's, whom one of 

those bores, 
"Who beflead with bad verses poor Louis 

Quatorze, 
Describes (the first verse somehow ends 

with victoire), 
As dispersant partout et ses membres et 

sa gloire ; 
Or, if I were over-desirous of earning 
A repute among noodles for classical 

learning, 
I could pick you a score of allusions, I 

wis, 
As new as the jests of DidasTcalos tis; 
Better still, I could make out a good 

solid list 
From recondite authors who do not ex- 
ist, — 
But that would be naughty : at least, I 

could twist 
Something out of Absyrtus, or turn 

your inquiries 
After Milton's prose metaphor, drawn 

from Osiris; — 
But, as Cicero says he won't say this or 

that 
(A fetch, I must say, most transparent 

and flat), 
After saying whate'er he could possibly 

think of, — 
I simply will state that I pause on the 

brink of 
A mire, ankle-deep, of deliberate con- 
fusion, 
Made up of old jumbles of classic allu- 
sion, 
So, when you were thinking yourselves 

to be pitied, 
Just conceive how much harder your 

teeth you 'd have gritted, 
An 't were not for the dulness I 've 

kindly omitted. 

I 'd apologize here for my many di- 
gressions, 

Were it not that I 'm certain to trip into 
fresh ones 

('Tis so hard to escape if you get in 
their mesh once) ; 

Just reflect, if you please, how 't is said 
by Horatius, 

That Maeonides nods now and then, and, 
my gracious ! 

It certainly does look a little bit omi- 
nous 



When he gets under way with ton 

oV apameibomenos. 
(Here a something occurs which I '11 just 

clap a rhyme to, 
And say it myself, ere a Zoilus have 

time to, — 
Any author a nap like Yan Winkle's 

may take, 
If he only contrive to keep readers 

awake, 
But he '11 very soon find himself laid on 

the shelf, 
If they fall a-nodding when he nods 

himself.) 

Once for all, to return, and to stav, 

willl, nilll — 
When Phoebus expressed his desire for 

a lily, 
Our hero, whose homoeopathic sagacity 
With an ocean of zeal mixed his drop 

of capacity, 
Set off for the garden as fast as the 

wind 
(Or, to take a comparison more to my 

mind, 
As a sound politician leaves conscience 

behind), 
And leaped the low fence, as a party 

hack jumps 
O'er his principles, when something else 

turns up trumps. 

He was gone a long time, and Apollo, 

meanwhile, 
Went over some sonnets of his with a 

file, 
For, of all compositions, he thought 

that the sonnet 
Best repaid all the toil you expended 

upon it ; 
It should reach with one impulse the 

end of its course, 
And for one final blow collect all of its 

force ; 
Not a verse should be salient, but each 

one should tend 
With a wave-like up-gathering to break 

at the end ; 
So, condensing the strength here, there 

smoothing a wry kink, 
He was killing the time, when up walked 

Mr. D ; 

At a few steps behind him, a small man 

in glasses 
Went dodging about, muttering, " Mur- 
derers ! asses ! " 



126 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



From out of his pocket a paper he 'd take, 

With a proud look of martyrdom tied to 
its stake, 

And, reading a squib at himself, he'd 
say, " Here I see 

'Gainst American letters a bloody con- 
spiracy, 

They are all by. my personal enemies 
written ; 

I must post an anonymous letter to 
Britain, 

And show that this gall is the merest 
suggestion 

Of spite at my zeal on the Copyright 
question, 

For, on this side the water, 'i is prudent 
to pull 

O'er the eyes of the public their national 
wool, 

By accusing of slavish respect to John 
Bull 

All American authors who have more or 
less 

Of that anti- American humbug — suc- 
cess, 

While in private we 're always em- 
bracing the knees 

Of some twopenny editor over the seas, 

And licking his critical shoes, for you 
know 't is 

The whole aim of our lives to get one 
English notice ; 

My American puffs I would willingly 
burn all 

(They 're all from one source, monthly, 
weekly, diurnal) 

To get but a kick from a transmarine 
journal ! " 

So, culling the gibes of each critical 
scorner 

As if they were plums, and himself were 
Jack Horner, 

He came cautiously on, peeping round 
every corner, 

And into each hole where a weasel might 
pass in, 

Expecting the knife of some critic as- 
sassin, 

Who stabs to the heart with a carica- 
ture, 

Not so bad as those daubs of the Sun, 
to be sure, 

Yet done with a dagger- o' -type, whose 
vile portraits 

Disperse all one's good and condense all 
one's poor traits. 



Apollo looked up, hearing footsteps 

approaching, 
And slipped out of sight the new rhymes 

he was broaching, — 
" Good day, Mr. D , I 'm happy to 

meet, 
With a scholar so ripe, and a critic so 

neat, 
Who through Grub Street the soul of a 

gentleman carries; 
What news from that suburb of London 

and Paris 
Which latterly makes such shrill claims 

to monopolize 
The credit of being the New World's 

metropolis ? " 

" Why, nothing of consequence, save 

this attack 
On my friend there, behind, by some 

pitiful hack, 
Who thinks every national author a poor 

one, 
That is n't a copy of something that 's 

foreign, 
And assaults the American Dick — " 

" Nay, 't is clear 
That your Damon there 's fond of a flea 

in his ear, 
And, if no one else furnished them gra- 
tis, on tick 
He would buy some himself, just to hear 

the old click ; 
Why, I honestly think, if some fool in 

Japan 
Should turn up his nose at the * Poems 

on Man,' 
Your friend there by some inward in- 
stinct would know it, 
Would get it translated, reprinted, and 

show it ; 
As a man might take off a high stock to 

exhibit 
The autograph round his own neck of 

the gibbet ; 
Nor would let it rest so, but fire column 

after column, 
Signed Cato, or Brutus, or something as 

solemn, 
By way of displaying his critical crosses, 
And tweaking that poor transatlantic 

proboscis, 
His broadsides resulting (this last there 's 

no doubt of) 
In successively sinking the craft they 're 

fired out of. 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



127 



Now nobody knows when an author is 

hit, 
If he don't have a public hysterical fit ; 
Let him only keep close in his snug 

garret's dim ether, 
And nobody 'd think of his critics — or 

him either ; 
If an author have any least fibre of 

worth in him, 
Abuse would but tickle the organ of 

mirth in him; 
All the critics on earth cannot crush 

with their ban 
One word that 's in tune with the nature 

of man." 

" Well, perhaps so ; meanwhile I have 
brought you a book, 

Into which if you '11 just have the good- 
ness to look, 

You may feel so delighted (when once 
you are through' it) 

As to deem it not unworth your while 
to review it, 

And I think I can promise your thoughts, 
if you do, 

A place in the next Democratic Review." 

" The most thankless of gods you must 

surely have thought me, 
For this is the forty-fourth copy you 've 

brought me, 
I have given them away, or at least I 

have tried, 
But I 've forty-two left, .standing all side 

by side 
(The man who accepted that one copy 

died), — 
From one end of a shelf to the other 

they reach, 
■ * With the author's respects ' neatly 

written in each. 
The publisher, sure, will proclaim a Te 

Deum, 
When he hears of that order the British 

Museum 
Has sent for one set of what books were 

first printed 
In America, little or big, — for 't is 

hinted 
That this is the first truly tangible hope 

he 
Has ever had raised for the sale of a copy. 
I 'vb thought very often 't would be a 

good thing 
In all public collections of books, if a 

wing 



Were set off by itself, like the seas from 

the dry lands, 
Marked Literature suited to desolate 

islands, 
And filled with such books as could 

never be read 
Save by readers of proofs, forced to do it 

for bread, — 
Such books as one 's wrecked on in small 

c oun t r y - tavern s, 
Such as hermits might mortify over in 

caverns, 
Such as Satan, if printing had then been 

invented, 
As the climax of woe, would to Job have 

presented, 
Such as Crusoe might dip in, although 

there are few so 
Outrageously cornered by fate as poor 

Crusoe ; 
And since the philanthropists just now 

are banging 
And gibbeting all who 're in favor of 

hanging 
(Though Cheever has proved that the 

Bible and Altar 
Were let down from Heaven at the end 

of a halter, 
And that vital religion would dull and 

grow callous, 
Unrefreshed, now and then, with a sniff 

of the gallows), — 
And folks are beginning to think it looks 

odd, 
To choke a poor scamp for the glory of 

God; 
And that He who esteems the Virginia reel 
A bait to draw saints from their spiritual 

weal, 
And regards the quadrille as a far greater 

knavery 
Than crushing His African children 

with slavery, — 
Since all who take part in a waltz or 

cotillon 
Are mounted for hell on the Devil's own 

pillion, 
Who, as every true orthodox Christian 

well knows, 
Approaches the heart through the door 

of the toes, — 
That He, I was saying, whose judgments 

are stored 
For such as take steps in despite of his 

word, 
Should look with delight on the ago- 
nized prancing 



128 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



Of a wretch who has not the least ground 

for his dancing, 
While the State, standing by, sings a 

verse from the Psalter 
About offering to God on his favorite 

halter, 
And, when the legs droop from their 

twitching divergence, 
Sells the clothes to a Jew, and the 

corpse to the surgeons; — 
Now, instead of all this, I think I can 

direct you all 
To a criminal code both humane and 

effectual ; — 
I propose to shut up every doer of 

wrong 
With these desperate books, for such 

term, short or long, 
As by statute in such cases made and 

provided, 
Shall be by your wise legislators de- 
cided : 
Thus : — Let murderers be shut, to grow 

wiser and cooler, 
At hard labor for life on the works of 

Miss ; 

Petty thieves, kept from flagrant er 

crimes by their fears, 
Shall peruse Yankee Doodle a blank 

term of years, — 
That American Punch, like the English, 

no doubt, — 
Just the sugar and lemons and spirit 

left out. 



"But stay, here comes Tityrus Gris- 
wold, and leads on 

The flocks whom he first plucks alive, 
and then feeds on, — 

A loud- cackling swarm, in whose feath- 
ers warm-drest, 

He goes for as perfect a — swan as the 
rest. 

" There comes Emerson first, whose 

rich words, every one, 
Are like gold nails in temples to hang 

trophies on, 
Whose prose is grand verse, while his 

verse, the Lord knows, 
Is some of it pr — No, 't is not even 

prose ; 
I 'm speaking of metres ; some poems 

have welled 
From those rare depths of soul that have 

ne'er been excelled ; 



They're not epics, but that doesn't 

matter a pin, 
In creating, the only hard thing 's to 

begin ; 
A grass-blade 's no easier to make than 

an oak ; 
If you Ve once found the way, you 've 

achieved the grand stroke ; 
In the worst of his poems are mines of 

rich matter, 
But thrown in a heap with a crush and 

a clatter; 
Now it is not one thing nor another alone 
Makes a poem, but rather the general 

tone, 
The something pervading, uniting the 

whole, 
The before unconceived, unconceivable 

soul, 
So that just in removing this trifle or 

that, you 
Take away, as it were, a chief limb of 

the statue ; 
Roots, wood, bark, and leaves singly 

perfect may be, 
But, clapt hodge-podge together, they 

don't make a tree. 

* ' But, to come back to Emerson (whom, 
by the way, 

I believe we left waiting), — his is, we 
may say, 

A Greek head on right Yankee shoul- 
ders, whose range 

Has Olympus for one pole, for t' other 
the Exchange ; 

He seems, to my thinking (although I'm 
afraid 

The comparison must, long ere this, have 
been made), 

A Plotinus-Montaigne, where the Egyp- 
tian's gold mist 

And the Gascon's shrewd wit cheek -by- 
jowl coexist; 

All admire, and yet scarcely six convert* 
he's got 

To I don't (nor they either) exactly 
know what ; 

For though he builds glorious temples, 
't is odd 

He leaves never a doorway to get in a 
god. 

'T is refreshing to old-fashioned people 
like me 

To meet such a primitive Pagan as he, 

In whose mind all creation is duly re- 
spected 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



129 



As parts of himself — just a little pro- 
jected ; 
And who 's willing to worship the stars 

and the sun, 
A convert to — nothing but Emerson. 
So perfect a balance there is in his 

head, 
That he talks of things sometimes as if 

they were dead ; 
Life, nature, love, God, and affairs of 

that sort, 
He looks at as merely ideas; in short, 
As if they were fossils stuck round in a 

cabinet, 
Of such vast extent that our earth 's a 

mere dab in it ; 
Composed just as he is inclined to con- 
jecture her, 
Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine 

parts pure lecturer ; 
You are filled with delight at his clear 

demonstration, 
Each figure, word, gesture, just fits the 

occasion, 
"With the quiet precision of science he'll 

sort 'em 
But you can't help suspecting the whole 

a post mortem. 

"There are persons, mole-blind to the 

soul's make and style, 
Who insist on a likeness 'twixt him and 

Carlyle ; 
To compare him with Plato would be 

vastly fairer, 
Carlyle 's the more burly, but E. is the 

rarer ; 
He sees fewer objects, but clearlier, true- 

lier, 
If C.'s as original, E.'s more peculiar ; 
That he 's more of a man you might say 

of the one, 
Of the other he 's more of an Emerson ; 
C.'s the Titan, as shaggy of mind as of 

limb, — 
E. the clear-eyed Olympian, rapid and 

slim ; 
The one 's two thirds Norseman, the 

other half Greek, 
Where the one 's most abounding, the 

other 's to seek ; 
C.'s generals require to be seen in the 

mass, — 
E.'s specialties gain if enlarged by the 

glass; 
C. gives nature and God his own fits of 

the blues, 



And rims common-sense things with 
mystical hues, — 

E. sits in a mystery calm and intense, 

And looks coolly around him with sharp 
common-sense; 

C. shows you how every-day matters 
unite 

With the dim transdiurnal recesses of 
night, — 

While E., in a plain, preternatural way, 

Makes mysteries matters of mere every 
day; 

C. draws all his characters quite a la 
Fuseli, — 

He don't sketch their bundles of mus- 
cles and thews illy, 

But he paints with a brush so untamed 
and profuse, 

They seem nothing but bundles of mus- 
cles and thews ; 

E. is rather like Flaxman, lines strait 
and severe, 

And a colorless outline, but full, round, 
and clear ; — 

To the men he thinks worthy he frankly 
accords 

The design of a white marble statue in 
words. 

C. labors to get at the centre, and 
then 

Take a reckoning from there of his ac- 
tions and men ; 

E. calmly assumes the said centre as 
granted, 

And, given himself, has whatever is 
wanted. 

" He has imitators in scores, who omit 
No part of the man but his wisdom and 

wit, — 
Who go carefully o'er the sky-blue of 

his brain, 
And when he has skimmed it once, 

skim it again ; 
If at all they resemble him, you may be 

sure it is 
Because their shoals mirror his mists 

and obscurities, 
As a mud-puddle seems deep as heaven 

for a minute, 
While a cloud that floats o'er is reflected 

within it. 

1 ' There comes , for instance ; to 

see him 's rare sport, 
Tread in Emerson's tracks with legs pain- 
fully short ; 



130 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



How he jumps, how he strains, and gets 
red in the face, 

To keep step with the mystagogue's 
natural pace ! 

He follows as close as a stick to a rock- 
et, 

His fingers exploring the prophet's each 
pocket. 

Fie, for shame, brother bard ; with good 
fruit of your own, 

Can't you let Neighbor Emerson's or- 
chards alone ? 

Besides, 't is no use, you '11 not find e'en 
a core, — 

has picked up all the windfalls be- 
fore. 

They might strip every tree, and E. 
never would catch 'em, 

His Hesperides have no rude dragon to 
watch 'em ; 

"When they send him a dishful, and ask 
him to try 'em, 

He never suspects how the sly rogues 
came by 'em ; 

He wonders why 't is there are none 
such his trees on, 

And thinks 'em the best he has tasted 
this season. 

" Yonder, calm as a cloud, Alcott 
stalks in a dream, 

And fancies himself in thy groves, Aca- 
deme, 

With the Parthenon nigh, and the olive- 
trees o'er him, 

And never a fact to perplex him or bore 
him, 

With a snug room at Plato's when night 
comes, to walk to, 

And people from morning till midnight 
to talk to, 

And from midnight till morning, nor 
snore in their listening ; — 

So he muses, his face with the joy of it 
glistening, 

For his highest conceit of a happiest 
state is 

Where they'd live upon acorns, and hear 
him talk gratis ; 

And indeed, I believe, no man ever 
talked better, — 

Each sentence hangs perfectly poised to 
a letter ; 

He seems piling words, but there 's royal 
dust hid 

In the heart of each sky-piercing pyra- 
mid. 



While he talks he is great, but goes out 

like a taper, 
If you shut him up closely with pen, ink, 

and paper ; 
Yet his fingers itch for 'em from morning 

till night, 
And he thinks he does wrong if he don't 

always write ; 
In this, as in all things, a lamb among 

men, 
He goes to sure death when he goes to 

his pen. 

" Close behind him is Brownson, his 

mouth very full 
With attempting to gulp a Gregorian 

bull ; 
Who contrives, spite of that, to pour out 

as he goes 
A stream of transparent and forcible 

prose ; 
He shifts quite about, then proceeds to 

expound 
That 't is merely the earth, not himself, 

that turns round, 
And wishes it clearly impressed on your 

mind 
That the weathercock rules and not fol- 
lows the wind ; 
Proving first, then as deftly confuting 

each side, 
With no doctrine pleased that 's not 

somewhere denied, 
He lays the denier away on the 

shelf, 
And then — down beside him lies gravely 

himself. 
He's the Salt River boatman, who al- 
ways stands willing 
To convey friend or foe without charging 

a shilling, 
And so fond of the trip that, when lei- 
sure 's to spare, 
He '11 row himself up, if he can't get a 

fare. 
The worst of it is, that his logic 's so 

strong, 
That of two sides he commonly chooses 

the wrong; 
If there is only one, why, he'll split it 

in two, 
And first pummel this half, then that, 

black and blue. 
That white 's white needs no proof, but 

it takes a deep fellow 
To prove it jet-black, and that jet-black 

is yellow. 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



131 



He offers the true faith to drink in a 

sieve, — 
When it reaches your lips there 's naught 

left to believe 
But a few silly- (syllo-, I mean,) -gisms 

that squat 'em 
Like tadpoles, o'erjoyed with the mud at 

the bottom. 

"There is Willis, all natty and jaunty 
and gay, 

Who says his best things in so foppish 
a way, 

With conceits and pet phrases so thickly 
o'erlaying 'em, 

That one hardly knows whether to thank 
him for saying 'em ; 

Over-ornament ruins both poem and 
prose, 

Just conceive of a Muse with a ring in 
her nose ! 

His prose had a natural grace of its 
own, 

And enough of it, too, if he 'd let it 
alone ; 

But he twitches and jerks so, one fairly 
gets tired, 

And is forced to forgive where he might 
have admired ; 

Yet whenever it slips away free and un- 
laced, 

It runs like a stream with a musical 
waste, 

And gurgles along with the liquidest 
sweep ; — 

'T is not deep as a river, but who 'd 
have it deep ? 

In a country where scarcely a village is 
found 

That has not its author sublime and pro- 
found, 

For some one to be slightly shoal is a 
duty, 

And Willis's shallowness makes half his 
beauty. 

His prose winds along with a blithe, 
gurgling error, 

And reflects all of Heaven it can see in 
its mirror. 

'T is a narrowish strip, but it is not an 
artifice, — 

'T is the true out-of-doors with its genu- 
ine hearty phiz; 

It is Nature herself, and there 's some- 
thing in that, 

Since most brains reflect but the crown 
of a hat. 



No volume I know to read under a tree, 
More truly delicious than his A l'Abri, 
With the shadows of leaves flowing over 

your book, 
Like ripple-shades netting the bed of a 

brook ; 
With June coming softly your shoulder 

to look over, 
Breezes waiting to turn every leaf of 

your book over, 
And Nature to criticise still as you 

read, — 
The page that bears that is a rare one 

indeed. 

"He's so innate a cockney, that hai 

he been born 
Where plain bear-skin's the only full- 
dress that is worn, 
He 'd have given his own such an air that 

you 'd say 
'T had been made by a tailor to lounge, 

in Broadway. 
His nature 's a glass of champagne with 

the foam on 't, 
As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beau- 
mont ; 
So his best things are done in the flush 

of the moment, 
If he wait, all is spoiled ; he may stir it 

and shake it, 
But, the fixed air once gone, he can never 

remake it. 
He might be a marvel of easy delightful- 

ness, 
If he would not sometimes leave the r out 

of sprightfulness ; 
And he ought to let Scripture alone — 

't is self- slaughter, 
For nobody likes inspiration -and- water. 
He 'd have been just the fellow to sup at 

the Mermaid, 
Cracking jokes at rare Ben, with an eye 

to the barmaid, 
His wit running up as Canary ran 

down, — 
The topmost bright bubble on the wave 

of The Town. 

"Here comes Parker, the Orson of par- 
sons, a man 

Whom the Church undertook to put un- 
der her ban 

(The Church of Socinus, I mean), — his 
opinions 

Being So- (ultra) -ciuian, they shocked 
the Socinians ; 



132 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



They believed — faith, I 'm puzzled — I 

think I may call 
Their belief a believing in nothing at 

all, 
Or something of that sort ; I know they 

all went 
For a general union of total dissent : 
He went a step farther ; without cough 

or hem, 
He frankly avowed he believed not in 

them ; 
And, before he could be jumbled up or 

prevented, 
From their orthodox kind of dissent he 

dissented. 
There was heresy here, you perceive, for 

the right 
Of privately judging means simply that 

light 
Has been granted to me, for deciding on 

you ; 
And in happier times, before Atheism 

grew, 
The deed contained clauses for cooking 

you too, 
Now at Xerxes and Knut "we all laugh, 

yet our foot 
With the same wave is wet that mocked 

Xerxes and Knut, 
And we all entertain a sincere private 

notion, 
That our Thus far I will have a great 

weight with the ocean. 
'T was so with our liberal Christians : 

they bore 
With sincerest conviction their chairs to 

the shore ; 
They brandished their worn theological 

birches, 
Bade natural progress keep out of the 

Churches, 
And expected the lines they had drawn 

to prevail 
With the fast -rising tide to keep out of 

their pale ; 
They had formerly dammed the Pontifi- 
cal See, 
And the same thing, they thought, 

would do nicely for P. ; 
But he turned up his nose at their mur- 
muring and shamming, 
And cared (shall I say ?) not a d for 

their damming ; 
So they first read him out of their 

church, and next minute 
Turned round and declared he had never 

been in it. 



But the ban was too small or the man 

was too big, 
For he recks not their bells, books, and 

candles a fig 
(He don't look like a man who would 

stay treated shabbily, 
Sophroniscus' son's head o'er the fea- 
tures of Rabelais) ; — 
He bangs and bethwacks them, — their 

backs he salutes 
With the whole tree of knowledge torn 

up by the roots ; 
His sermons with satire are plenteously 

verjuiced, 
And he talks in one breath of Confut- 

zee, Cass, Zerduscht, 
Jack Robinson, Peter the Hermit, Strap, 

Dathan, 
Cush, Pitt (not the bottomless, that 

he 's no faith in), 
Pan, Pillicock, Shakespeare, Paul, 

Toots, Monsieur Tonson, 
Aldebaran, Alcander, Ben Khorat, Ben 

Jonson, 
Thoth, Richter, Joe Smith, Father Paul, 

Judah Monis, 
Musaeus, Muretus, hem, — //. Scorpio- 

nis, 
Maccabee, Maccaboy, Mac — Mac — ah ! 

Machiavelli, 
Condorcet, Count d'Orsay, Conder, Say, 

Ganganelli, 
Orion, O'Connell, the Chevalier D'O, 
(See the Memoirs of Sully,) to irav, the 

great toe 
Of the statue of Jupiter, now made to 

pass 
For that of Jew Peter by good Romish 

brass, 
(You may add for yourselves, for I find 

it a bore, 
All the names you have ever, or not, 

heard before, 
And when you ' ve done that — why, in- 
vent a few more.) 
His hearers can't tell you on Sunday 

beforehand, 
If in that day's discourse they '11 be 

Bibled or Koraned, 
For he 's seized the idea (by his mar- 
tyrdom fired) 
That all men (not orthodox) may be 

inspired ; 
Yet though wisdom profane with his 

creed he may weave in, 
He makes it quite clear what he does rit 

believe in, 



A FABLE FOll CRITICS. 



133 



While some, who decry him, think all 

Kingdom Come 
Is a sort of a, kind of a, species of 

Hum, 
Of which, as it were, so to speak, not a 

crumb 
Would be left, if we did n't keep care- 
fully mum, 
And, to make a clean breast, that 't is 

perfectly plain 
That all kinds of wisdom are somewhat 

profane ; 
Now P. 's creed than this may be lighter 

or darker 
But in one thing, 't is clear, he has 

faith, namely — Parker ; 
And this is what makes him the crowd- 
drawing preacher, 
There 's a background of god to each 

hard-working feature, 
Every word that he speaks has been 

fierily furnaced 
In the blast of a life that has straggled 

in earnest : 
There he stands, looking more like a 

ploughman than priest, 
If not dreadfully awkward, not graceful 

at least, 
His gestures all downright and same, if 

you will, 
As of brown-fisted Hobnail in hoeing a 

drill, 
But his periods fall on you, stroke after 

stroke, 
Like the blows of a lumberer felling an 

oak, 
You forget the man wholly, you 're 

thankful to meet 
With a preacher who smacks of the 

field and the street, 
And to hear, you 're not over-particular 

whence, 
Almost Taylor's profusion, quite Lati- 
mer's sense. 

" There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, 

and as dignified, 
As a smooth, silent iceberg, that never 

is ignified, 
Save when by reflection 't is kindled o' 

nights 
With a semblance of flame by the chill 

Northern Lights. 
He may rank (Griswold says so) first 

bard of your nation 
(There 's no doubt that he stands in 

supreme ice-olation), 



Your topmost Parnassus he may set his 

heel on, 
But no warm applauses come, peal fol- 
lowing peal on, — 
He 's too smooth and too polished, to 

hang any zeal on : 
Unqualified merits, I '11 grant, if you 

choose, he has 'em, 
But he lacks the one merit of kindling 

enthusiasm ; 
If he stir you at all, it is just, on my 

soul, 
Like being stirred up with the very 

North Pole. 

"He is very nice reading in summer, 

but inter 
Nos, we don't want extra freezing in 

winter ; 
Take him up in the depth of July, my 

advice is, 
When you feel an Egyptian devotion to 

ices. 
But, deduct all you can, there 's enough 

that 's right good in him, 
He has a true soul for field, river, and 

wood in him ; 
And his heart, in the midst of brick 

walls, or where'er it is, 
Glows, softens, and thrills with the ten- 

derest charities — 
To you mortals that delve in this trade- 
ridden planet? 
No, to old Berkshire's hills, with their 

limestone and granite. 
If you 're one who in loco (add foco 

here) desipis, 
You will get of his outermost heart (as 

I guess) a piece ; 
But you 'd get deeper down if you came 

as a precipice, 
And would break the last seal of its in- 
war dest fountain, 
If you only could palm yourself off for 

a mountain. 
Mr. Qui vis, or somebody quite as dis- 
cerning, 
Some scholar who 's hourly expecting 

his learning, 
Calls B. the American Wordsworth ; 

but Wordsworth 
Is worth near as much as your whole 

tuneful herd 's worth. 
No, don't be absurd, he 's an excellent 

Bryant ; 
But, my friends, you '11 endanger the 

life of your client, 



134 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



By attempting to stretch him up into a 

giant : 
If you choose to compare him, I think 

there are two per- 
-sons fit for a parallel — Thompson and 

Cowper ; * 
I don't mean exactly,- — there 's some- 
thing of each, 
There 's T.'s love of nature, C.'s pen- 
chant to preach; 
Just mix up their minds so that C.'s 

spice of craziness 
Shall balance and neutralize T.'s turn 

for laziness, 
And it gives you a brain cool, quite 

frictionless, quiet, 
Whose internal police nips the buds of 

all riot, — 
A brain like a permanent strait-jacket 

put on 
The heart which strives vainly to burst 

off a button, — 
A brain which, without being slow or 

mechanic, 
Does more than a larger less drilled, 

more volcanic ; 
He's a Cowper condensed, with no 

craziness bitten, 
And the advantage that Wordsworth 

before him had written. 

*'But, my dear little bardlings, don't 
prick up your ears 

Nor suppose I would rank you and Bry- 
ant as peers ; 

If I call him an iceberg, I don't mean 
to say 

There is nothing in that which is grand 
in its way ; 

He is almost the one of your poets that 
knows 

How much grace, strength, and dignity 
lie in Repose ; 

If he sometimes fall short, he is too 
wise to mar 

His thought's modest fulness by going 
too far ; 

'T would be well if your authors should 
all make a trial 

Of what virtue there is in severe self- 
denial, 



* To demonstrate quickly and easily how per- 
-versely absurd 'tis to sound this name 

Cowper, 
As people in general call him named super, 
I remark that he rhymes it himself with 

horse-trooper. 



And measure their writings by Hesiod's 

staff, 
Which teaches that all has less value 

than half. 

* ' There is Whittier, whose swelling 

and vehement heart 
Strains the strait- breasted drab of the 

Quaker apart, 
And reveals the live Man, still supreme 

and erect, 
Underneath the bemummying wrappers 

of sect ; 
There was ne'er a man born who had 

more of the swing 
Of the true lyric bard and all that kind 

of thing ; 
And his failures arise (though perhaps 

he don't know it) 
From the very same cause that has 

made him a poet, — 
A fervor of mind which knows no sep- 
aration 
'Twixt simple excitement and pure in- 
spiration, 
As my Pythoness erst sometimes erred 

from not knowing 
If 't were I or mere wind through her 

tripod was blowing ; 
Let his mind once get head in its fa- 
vorite direction 
And the torrent of verse bursts the dams 

of reflection, 
While, borne with the rush of the metre 

along, 
The poet may chance to go right or go 

wrong, 
Content with the whirl and delirium of 

song; 
Then his grammar 's not always correct, 

nor his rhymes, 
And he 's prone to repeat his own lyrics 

sometimes, 
Not his best, though, for those are 

struck off at white -heats 
When the heart in his breast like a trip- 
hammer beats, 
And can ne'er be repeated again any 

more 
Than they could have been carefully 

plotted before : 
Like old what's-his-name there at the 

battle of Hastings 
(Who, however, gave more than mere 

rhythmical bastings), 
Our Quaker leads off metaphorical 

fights 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



135 



For reform and whatever they call hu- 
man rights, 

Both singing and striking in front of 
the war, 

And hitting his foes with the mallet of 
Thor ; 

Anne haec, one exclaims, on beholding 
his knocks, 

Vestis filii tui, leather-clad Fox ? 

Can that be thy son, in the battle's mid 
din, 

Preaching brotherly love and then driv- 
ing it in 

To the brain of the tough old Goliah of 
sin, 

With the smoothest of pebbles from 
Castaly's spring 

Impressed on his hard moral sense with 
a sling ? 

" All honor and praise to the right- 
hearted bard 

Who was true to The Yoice when such 
service was hard, 

Who himself was so free he dared sing 
for the slave 

When to look but a protest in silence 
was brave ; 

All honor and praise to the women and 
men 

Who spoke out for the dumb and the 
down- trodden then ! 

I need not to name them, already for each 

I see History preparing the statue and 
niche ; 

They were harsh, but shall you be so 
shocked at hard words 

Who have beaten your pruning-hooks 
up into swords, 

Whose rewards and hurrahs men are 
surer to gain 

By the reaping of men and of women 
than grain ? 

Why should you stand aghast at their 
fierce -wordy war, if 

You scalp one another for Bank or for 
Tariff? 

Your calling them cut -throats and 
knaves all day long 

Don't prove that the use of hard lan- 
guage is wrong ; 

While the World's heart beats quicker 
to think of such men 

As signed Tyranny's doom with a bloody 
steel-pen, 

While on Fourth-of-Julys beardless ora- 
tors fright one 



With hints at Harmodius and Aristo- 
geiton, 

You need not look shy at your sisters 
and brothers 

Who stab with sharp words for the free- 
dom of others ; — 

No, a wreath, twine a wreath for the 
loyal and true 

Who, for sake of the many, dared stand 
with the few, 

Not of blood-spattered laurel for ene- 
mies braved, 

But of broad, peaceful oak -leaves for 
citizens saved ! 

" Here comes Dana, abstractedly loi- 
tering along, 
Involved in a paulo-post-future of song, 
Who '11 be going to write what '11 never 

be written 
Till the Muse, ere he think of it, gives 

him the mitten, — 
Who is so well aware of how things 

should be done, 
That his own works displease him before 

they 're begun, — 
Who so well all that makes up good 

poetry knows, 
That the best of his poems is written in 

prose ; 
All saddled and bridled stood Pegacsus 

waiting, 
He was booted and spurred, but he loi- 
tered debating ; 
In a very grave question his soul was 

immersed, — 
Which foot in the stirrup he ought to 

put first ; 
And, while this point and that he judi- 
cially dwelt on, 
He, somehow or other, had written 

Paul Felton, 
Whose beauties or faults, whichsoever 

you see there, 
You '11 allow only genius could hit upon 

either. 
That he once w T as the Idle man none 

will deplore, 
But I fear he will never be anything more ; 
The ocean of song heaves and glitters 

before him, 
The depth and the vastness and longing 

sweep o'er him, 
He knows every breaker and shoal on 

the chart, 
He has the Coast Pilot and so on by 

heart, 



136 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



Yet he spends his whole life, like the 
man in the fable, 

In learning to swim on his library- 
table. 

" There swaggers John Neal, who has 

wasted in Maine 
The sinews and chords of his pugilist 

brain, 
Who might have been poet, but that, 

in its stead, he 
Preferred to beljeve that he was so 

already ; 
Too hasty to wait till Art's ripe fruit 

should drop, 
He must pelt down an unripe and 

colicky crop; 
Who took to the law, and had this 

sterling plea for it, 
It required him to quarrel, and paid 

him a fee for it ; 
A man who 's made less than he might 

have, because 
He always has thought himself more 

than he was, — 
Who, with very good natural gifts as a 

bard, 
Broke the strings of his lyre out by 

striking too hard, 
And. cracked half the notes of a truly 

* fine voice, 
Because song drew less instant attention 

than noise. 
Ah, men do not know how much strength 

is in poise, 
That he goes the farthest who goes far 

enough, 
And that all beyond that is just bother 

and stuff. 
No vain man matures, he makes too 

much new wood ; 
His blooms"' are too thick for the fruit 

to be good ; 
'T is the modest man ripens, 't is he 

that achieves, 
Just what 's needed of sunshine and 

shade he receives ; 
Grapes, to mellow, require the cool dark 

of their leaves ; 
Neal wants balance ; he throws his mind 

always too far, 
Whisking out flocks of comets, but never 

a star ; 
He has so much muscle, and loves so to 

show it, 
That he strips himself naked to prove 

he's a poet, 



And, to show he could leap Art's wide 

ditch, if he tried, 
Jumps clean o'er it, and into the hedge 

t' other side. 
He has strength, but there 's nothing 

about him in keeping ; 
One gets surelier onward by walking 

than leaping ; 
He has used his own sinews himself to 

distress, 
And had done vastly more had he done 

vastly less ; 
In letters, too soon is as bad as too late ; 
Could he only have waited he might 

have been great ; 
But he plumped into Helicon up to the 

waist, 
And muddied the stream ere he took his 

first taste. 

''There is Hawthorne, with genius 

so shrinking and rare 
That you hardly at first see the strength 

that is there ; 
A frame so robust, with a nature so 

sweet, 
So earnest, so graceful, so solid, so fleet, 
Is worth a descent from Olympus to 

meet ; 
'T is as if a rough oak that for ages had 

stood, 
With his gnarled bony branches like 

ribs of the wood, 
Should bloom, after cycles of struggle 

and scathe, 
With a single anemone trembly and 

rathe ; • 

His strength is so tender, his wildness 

so meek, 
That a suitable parallel sets one tc 

seek, — 
He 's a John Bunyan Fouque, a Puritan 

Tieck ; 
When Nature was shaping him, clay was 

not granted 
For making so full-sized a man as she 

wanted, 
So, to fill out her model, a little she 

spared 
From some finer-grained stuff for a 

woman prepared, 
And she could not have hit a more ex- 
cellent plan 
For making him fully and perfectly 

man. 
The success of her scheme gave her so 

much delight, 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



137 



That she tried it again, shortly after, in 
Dwight ; 

Only, while she was kneading and shap- 
ing the clay, 

She sang to her work in her sweet child- 
ish way, 

And found, when she 'd put the last 
touch to his soul, 

That the music had somehow got mixed 
with the whole. 

" Here 's Cooper, who 's written six 

volumes to show 
He 's as good as a lord : well, let 's 

grant that he 's so ; 
If a person prefer that description of 

praise, 
Why, a coronet 's certainly cheaper than 

bays ; 
But he need take no pains to convince 

us he's not 
(As his enemies say) the American Scott. 
Choose any twelve men, and let C. read 

aloud 
That one of his novels of which he 's 

most proud, 
And I 'd lay any be't that, without ever 

quitting 
Their box, they 'd be all, to a man, for 

acquitting. 
He has drawn you one character, though, 

that is new, 
One wildflower he 's plucked that is wet 

with the dew 
Of this fresh Western world, and, the 

firing not to mince, 
He has done naught but copy it ill ever 

since ; 
His Indians, with proper respect be it 

said, 
Are just Natty Bumpo, daubed over 

with red, 
And his very Long Toms are the same 

useful Nat, 
Rigged up in duck pants and a sou'- 
wester hat 
(Though once in a Coffin, a good chance 

was found 
To have slipped the old fellow away 

underground). 
All his other men-figures are clothes 

upon sticks, 
The derniere chemise of a man in a fix 
(As a captain besieged, when his garri- 
son 's small, 
Sets up caps upon poles to be seen o'er 

the wall) ; 



And the women he draws from one 
model don't vary, 

All sappy as maples and flat as a prai- 
rie. 

When a character 's wanted, he goes to 
the task 

As a cooper would do in composing a 
cask ; 

He picks out the staves, of their quali- 
ties heedful, 

Just hoops them together as tight as is 
needful, 

And, if the best fortune should crown 
the attempt, he 

Has made at the most something 
wooden and empty. 

" Don't suppose I would underrate 
Cooper's abilities ; 

If I thought you 'd do that, I should 
feel very ill at ease ; 

The men who have given to one charac- 
ter life 

And objective existence are not very 
rife ; 

You may number them all, both prose- 
writers and singers, 

Without overrunning the bounds of 
your fingers, 

And Natty won't go to oblivion quicker 

Than Adams the parson or Primrose the 
vicar. 

" There is one thing in Cooper I like, 
too, and that is 

That on manners he lectures his coun- 
trymen gratis ; 

Not precisely so either, because, for a 
rarity, 

He is paid for his tickets in unpopu- 
larity. 

Now he may overcharge his American 
pictures, 

But you '11 grant there 's a good deal of 
truth in his strictures ; 

And I honor the man who is willing to 
sink 

Half his present repute for the freedom 
to think, 

And, when he has thought, be his cause 
strong or weak, 

Will risk t' other half for the freedom to 
speak, 

Caring naught for what vengeance the 
mob has in store, 

Let that mob be the upper ten thousand 
or lower. 



138 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



" There are truths you Americans 
need to be told, 

And it never '11 refute them to swagger 
and scold ; 

John Bull, looking o'er the Atlantic, in 
choler 

At your aptness for trade, says you wor- 
ship the dollar ; 

But to scorn such eye-dollar-try 's what 
very few do, 

And John goes to that church as often 
as you do. 

No matter what John says, don't try to 
outcrow him, 

'T is enough to go quietly on and out- 
grow him ; 

Like most fathers, Bull hates to see 
Number One 

Displacing himself in the mind of his son, 

And detests the same faults in himself 
he'd neglected 

When he sees them again in his child's 
glass reflected ; 

To love one another you 're too like by 
half; 

If he is a bull, you 're a pretty stout calf, 

And tear your own pasture for naught 
but to show 

What a nice pair of horns you 're begin- 
ning to grow. 

" There are one or two things I should 

just like to hint, 
For you don't often get the truth told 

you in print ; 
The most of you (this is what strikes all 

beholders) 
Have a mental and physical stoop in the 

shoulders ; 
Though you ought to be free as the 

winds and the waves, 
You've the gait and the manners of 

runaway slaves ; 
Though you brag of your New World, 

you don't half believe in it ; 
And as much of the Old as is possible 

weave in it ; 
Your goddess of freedom, a tight, buxom 

girl, 
With lips like a cherry and teeth like a 

pearl, 
With eyes bold as Here's, and hair float- 
ing free, 
And full of the sun as the spray of the 

sea, 
Who can sing at a husking or romp at a 

shearing, 



Who can trip through the forests alone 

without fearing, 
Who can drive home the cows with a 

song through the grass, 
Keeps glancing aside into Europe's 

cracked glass, 
Hides her red hands in gloves, pinches 

up her lithe waist, 
And makes herself wretched with trans- 
marine taste ; 
She loses her fresh country charm when 

she takes 
Any mirror except her own rivers and 

lakes. 

"You steal Englishmen's books and 
think Englishmen's thought, 

With their salt on her tail your wild 
eagle is caught ; 

Your literature suits its each whisper 
and motion 

To w r hat will be thought of it over the 
ocean ; 

The cast clothes of Europe your states- 
manship tries 

And mumbles again the old blarneys and 
lies ; — 

Forget Europe wholly, your veins throb 
w r ith blood, 

To wdiich the dull current in hers is but 
mud ; 

Let her sneer, let her say your experi- 
ment fails, 

In her voice there 's a tremble e'en now 
while she rails, 

And your shore will soon be in the na- 
ture of things 

Covered thick with gilt drift-wood of 
runaway kings, 

Where alone, as it were in a Longfellow's "J 
Waif, 

Her fugitive pieces will find themselves 
safe. 

my friends, thank your God, if you 
have one, that he 

'Twixt the Old World and you set the 
gulf of a sea ; 

Be strong -backed, brown -handed, up- 
right as your pines, 

By the scale of a hemisphere shape your 
designs, 

Be true to yourselves and this new nine- 
teenth age, 

As a statue by Powers, or a picture by 
Page, 

Plough, sail, forge, build, carve, paint, 
all things make new, 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



139 



To your own Kew-World instincts con- 
trive to be true, 

Keep your ears open wide to the Future's 
first call, 

Be whatever you will, but yourselves 
first of all, 

Stand frontiug the dawn on Toil's 
heaven-scaling peaks, 

And become my new race of more prac- 
tical Greeks. — 

Hem ! your likeness at present, I shud- 
der to tell o't, 

Is that you have your slaves, and the 
Greek had his helot." 

Here a gentleman present, who had 
in his attic 

More pepper than brains, shrieked, — 
" The man 's a fanatic, 

I 'm a capital tailor with warm tar and 
feathers, 

And will make him a suit that '11 serve 
in all weathers ; 

But we '11 argue the point first, I 'm 
willing to reason 't, 

Palaver before condemnation 's but de- 
cent ; 

So, through my humble person, Hu- 
manity begs 

Of the friends of true freedom a loan of 
bad eggs." 

But Apollo let one such a look of his 
show forth 

As when ij'Ce vvktl ioiKws, and so forth, 

And the gentleman somehow slunk out 
of the way, 

But, as he was going, gained courage to 
sa}', — _ 

"At slavery in the abstract my whole 
soul rebels, 

I am as strongly opposed to 't as any one 
else." 

' ' Ay, no doubt, but whenever I ' ve hap- 
pened to meet 

With a wrong or a crime, it is always 
concrete," 

Answered Phoebus severely ; then turn- 
ing to us, 

"The mistake of such fellows as just 
made the fuss 

Is only in taking a great busy nation 

For a part of their pitiful cotton-plan- 
tation. — 

But there comes Miranda, Zeus ! where 
shall I flee to ? 

She has such a penchant for bothering 
me too ! 



She always keeps asking if I don't ob- 
serve a 

Particular likeness 'twixt her and Mi- 
nerva ; 

She tells me my efforts in verse are quite 
clever ; — 

She 's been travelling now, and will be 
worse than ever ; 

One would think, though, a sharp- 
sighted noter she 'd be 

Of all that 's worth mentioning over the 
sea, 

For a woman must surely see well, if 
she try, 

The whole of whose being's a cap- 
ital I : 

She will take an old notion, and make 
it her own, 

By saying it o'er in her Sibylline 
tone, 

Or persuade you 't is something tremen- 
dously deep, 

By repeating it so as to put you to 
sleep ; 

And she well may defy any mortal to 
see through it, 

When once she has mixed up her in- 
finite me through it. 

There is one thing she owns in her own 
single right, 

It is native and genuine — namely, her 
spite ; 

Though, when acting as censor, she 
privately blows 

A censer of vanity 'neath her own 
nose." 

Here Miranda came up, and said, 

" Phoebus ! you know 
That the infinite Soul has its in finite woe, 
As I ought to know, having lived cheek 

by jowl, 
Since the day I was born, with the In- 
finite Soul ; 
I myself introduced, I myself, I alone, 
To my Land's better life authors solely 

my own, 
Who the sad heart of earth on their 

shoulders have taken, 
Whose works sound a depth by Life's 

quiet unshaken, 
Such as Shakespeare, for instance, the 

Bible, and Bacon, 
Not to mention my own works ; Time's 

nadir is fleet, 
And, as for myself, I 'm quite out of 

conceit — " 



140 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



" Quite out of conceit ! I 'm en- 
chanted to hear it," 

Cried Apollo aside. " Who'd have 
thought she was near it ? 

To be sure, one is apt to exhaust those 
commodities 

He uses too fast, yet in this case as odd 
it is 

As if Neptune should say to his turbots 
and whitings, 

' I'm as much out of salt as Miranda's 
own writings ' 

( Which, as she in her own happy man- 
ner has said, 

Sound a depth, for 't is one of the func- 
tions of lead). 

She often has asked me if I could not 
find 

A place somewhere near me that suited 
her mind ; 

I know but a single one vacant, which 
she 

With her rare talent that way, would fit 
toaT. 

And it would not imply any pause or 
cessation 

In the work she esteems her peculiar 
vocation, — 

She may enter on duty to-day, if she 
chooses, 

And remain Tiring-woman for life to 
the Muses." 

(Miranda meanwhile has succeeded in 

driving 
Up into a corner, in spite of their 

striving, 
A small flock of terrified victims, and 

there, 
With an I-turn-the-crank-of-the-Uni- 

verse air 
And a tone which, at least to my fancy, 

appears 
Not so much to be entering as boxing 

your ears, 
Is unfolding a tale (of herself, I sur- 
mise), 
For 't is dotted as thick as a peacock's 

with I's). 
Apropos of Miranda, I '11 rest on my 

oars 
And drift through a trifling digression 

on bores, 
For, though not wearing ear-rings in 

more majorum, 
Our ears are kept bored just as if we still 

wore 'em. 



There was one feudal - custom worth 
keeping, at least, 

Roasted bores made a part of each well- 
ordered feast, 

And of all quiet pleasures the very ne 
plus 

Was in hunting wild bores as the tame 
ones hunt us. 

Archgeologians, I know, who have per- 
sonal fears 

Of this wise application of hounds and 
of spears, 

Have tried to make out, with a zeal 
more than wonted, 

'T was a kind of wild swine that our 
ancestors hunted ; 

But I '11 never believe that the age which 
has strewn 

Europe o'er with cathedrals, and other- 
wise shown 

That it knew what was what, could by 
chance not have known 

(Spending, too, its chief time with its buff 
on, no doubt), 

Which beast 't would improve the world 
most to thin out. 

I divide bores myself, in the manner of 
rifles, 

Into two great divisions, regardless of 
trifles ; — 

There 's your smooth-bore and screw- 
bore, who do not much vary 

In the weight of cold lead they respec- 
tively carry. 

The smooth-bore is one in whose essence 
the mind 

Not a corner nor cranny to cling by can 
find; 

You feel as in nightmares sometimes, 
when you slip 

Down a steep slated roof, where there 's 
nothing to grip ; 

You slide and you slide, the blank hor- 
ror increases, — 

You had rather by far be at once smashed 
to pieces ; 

You fancy a whirlpool below white and 
frothing, 

And finally drop off and light upon — 
nothing. 

The screw -bore has twists in him, faint 
predilections 

For going just wrong in the tritest di- 
rections ; 

When he 's wrong he is flat, when he's 
right he can't show it, 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



141 



He '11 tell you what Snooks said about 
the new poet, 

Or how Fogrum was outraged by Ten- 
nyson's Princess; 

He has spent all his spare time and in- 
tellect since his 

Birth in perusing, on each art and 
science, 

Just the books in which no one puts any 
reliance, 

And though nemo, we 're told, horis 
omnibus sapit, 

The rule will not lit him, however you 
shape it, 

For he has a perennial foison of sappi- 
ness ; 

He has just enough force to spoil half 
your day's happiness, 

And to make him a sort of mosquito to 
be with, 

But just not enough to dispute or agree 
with. 

These sketches I made (not to be too 
explicit) 

From two honest fellows who made me 
a visit, 

And broke, like the tale of the Bear and 
the Fiddle, 

My reflections on Halleck short off by 
the middle ; 

I sha' n't now go into the subject more 
deeply, 

For I notice that some of my readers look 
sleep'ly ; 

I will barely remark that, 'mongst civi- 
lized nations, 

There 's none that displays more exem- 
plary patience 

Under all sorts of boring, at all sorts of 
hours, 

From all sorts of desperate persons, than 
ours. 

Not to speak of our papers, our State 
legislatures, 

And other such trials for sensitive na- 
tures, 

Just look for a moment at Congress, — 
appalled, 

My fancy shrinks back from the phan- 
tom it called ; 

Why, there 's scarcely a member un- 
worthy to frown 

* (If you call Snooks an owl, he will show by 
his looks 
That he 's morally certain you 're jealous of 
Snooks.) 



'Neath what Fourier nicknames the 
Boreal crown; 

Only think what that infinite bore- 
pow'r could do 

If applied with a utilitarian view ; 

Suppose, for example, we shipped it 
with care 

To Sahara's great desert and let it bore 
there ; 

If they held one short session and did 
nothing else, 

They 'd fill the whole waste with Arte- 
sian wells. 

But 't is time now with pen phono- 
graphic to follow 

Through some more of his sketphes our 
laughing Apollo : — 

" There comes Harry Franco, and, as 

he draws near, 
You find that 's a smile which you took 

for a sneer ; 
One half of him contradicts t' other ; 

his wont 
Is to say very sharp things and do very 

blunt ; 
His manner 's as hard as his feelings are 

tender, 
And a sortie he '11 make when he means 

to surrender ; 
He's in joke half the time when he 

seems to be sternest, 
When he seems to be joking, be sure 

he 's in earnest ; 
He has common sense in a way that 's 

uncommon, 
Hates humbug and cant, loves his 

friends like a woman, 
Builds his dislikes of cards and his 

friendships of oak, 
Loves a prejudice better than aught but 

a joke, 
Is half upright Quaker, half downright 

Come-outer, 
Loves Freedom too well to go stark mad 

about her, 
Quite artless himself is a lover of Art, 
Shuts you out of his secrets and into his 

heart, 
And though not a poet, yet all must 

admire 
In his letters of Pinto his skill on the liar. 

"There comes Poe, with his raven, 
like Barnaby Rudge, 
Three fifths of him genius and two 
fifths sheer fudge,' 



142 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



Who talks like a book of iambs and 
pentameters, 

In a way to make people of common 
sense damn metres, 

Who has written some things quite the 
best of their kind, 

But the heart somehow seems all 
squeezed out by the mind, 

Who — But hey-day ! What 's this ? 
Messieurs Mathews and Poe, 

You must n't fling mud-balls at Long- 
fellow so, 

Does it make a man worse that his char- 
acter's such 

As to make his friends love him (as you 
think) too much ? 

Why, there is not a bard at this mo- 
ment alive 

More willing than he that his fellows 
should thrive ; 

While you are abusing him thus, even 
now 

He would help either one of you out of 
a slough ; 

You may say that he 's smooth and all 
that till you 're hoarse, 

But remember that elegance also is force ; 

After polishing granite as much as you 
will, 

The heart keeps its tough old persis- 
tency still ; 

Deduct all you can, that still keeps you 
at bay ; 

Why, he '11 live till men weary of 
Collins and Gray. 

I 'm not over-fond of Greek metres in 
English, 

To me rhyme 's a gain, so it be not too 
jinglish, 

And your modern hexameter verses are 
no more 

Like Greek ones than sleek Mr. Pope is 
like Homer ; 

As the roar of the sea to the coo of a 
pigeon is, 

So, compared to your moderns, sounds 
old Melesigenes ; 

I may be too partial, the reason, per- 
haps, o't is 

That I 've heard the old blind man re- 
cite his own rhapsodies, 

And my ear with that music impreg- 
nate may be, 

Like the poor exiled shell with the soul 
of the sea, 

Or as one can't bear Strauss when his 
nature is cloven 



To its deeps within deeps by the stroke 

of Beethoven ; 
But, set that aside, and 't is truth that 

I speak, 
Had Theocritus written in English, not 

Greek, 
I believe that his exquisite sense would 

scarce change a line 
In that rare, tender, virgin-like pastoral 

Evangeline. 
That 's not ancient nor modern, its 

place is apart 
Where time has no sway, in the realm 

of pure Art, 
'T is a shrine of retreat from Earth's 

hubbub and strife 
As quiet and chaste as the author's own 

life. 

" There comes Philothea, her face all 
aglow, 

She has just been dividing some poor 
creature's woe, 

And can't tell which pleases her most, 
to relieve 

His want, or his story to hear and be- 
lieve ; 

No doubt against many deep griefs she 
prevails, 

For her ear is the refuge of destitute 
tales ; 

She knows well that silence is sorrow's 
best food, 

And that talking draws off from the 
heart its black blood, 

So she '11 listen with patience and let 
you unfold 

Your bundle of rags as 't were pure cloth 
of gold, 

Which, indeed, it all turns to as soon 
as she 's touched it, 

And (to borrow a phrase from the nur- 
sery) muched it ; 

She has such a musical taste, she will 

g° 
Any distance to hear one who draws a 

long bow ; 
She will swallow a wonder by mere 

might and main, 
And thinks it Geometry's fault if she's 

fain 
To consider things flat, inasmuch as 

they 're plain ; 
Facts with her are accomplished, as 

Frenchmen would say — 
They will prove all she wishes them to 

either way, — 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



143 



And, as fact lies on this side or that, we 

must try, 
If we 're seeking the truth, to find 

where it don't lie ; 
I was telling her once of a marvellous 

aloe 
That for thousands of years had looked 

spindling and sallow, 
And, though nursed by the fruitfullest 

powers of mud, 
Had never vouchsafed e'en so much as a 

bad, 
Till its owner remarked (as a sailor, you 

know, 
Often will in a calm) that it never would 

blow, 
For he wished to exhibit the plant, and 

designed 
That its blowing should help him in 

raising the wind ; 
At last it was told him that if he should 

water 
Its roots with the blood of his unmar- 
ried daughter 
(Who was born, as her mother, a Cal- 

vinist, said, 
With William Law's serious caul on 

her head), 
It would blow as the obstinate breeze 

did when by a 
Like decree of her lather died Iphigenia ; 
At first he declared he himself would be 

blowed 
Ere his conscience with such a foul 

crime he would load, 
But the thought, coming oft, grew less 

dark than before, 
And bemused, as each creditor knocked 

at his door, 
If this were but done they would dun 

me no more; 
I told Philothea his struggles and 

doubts, 
And how he considered the ins and the 

outs 
Of the visions he had, and the dreadful 

dyspepsy, 
How he went to the seer that lives at 

Po'keepsie, 
How the seer advised him to sleep on it 

first, 
And to read his big volume in case of 

the worst, 
And further advised he should pay him 

five dollars 
For writing |§um, |§um, on his wrist- 
bands and collars} 



Three years and ten days these dark 

words he had studied 
When the daughter was missed, and the 

aloe had budded ; 
I told how he watched it grow large and 

more large, 
And wondered how much for the show 

he should charge, — 
She had listened with utter indifference 

to this, till 
I told how it bloomed, and, discharging 

its pistil 
With an aim the Eumenides dictated, 

shot 
The botanical filicide dead on the spot ; 
It had blown, but he reaped' not his 

horrible gains, 
For it blew with such force as to blow 

out his brains, 
And the crime was blown also, because 

on the wad, 
Which was paper, was writ * Visitation 

of God,' 
As well as a thrilling account of the deed 
Which the coroner kindly allowed me to 

read. 

" Weil, my friend took this story up 

just, to be sure, 
As one might a poor foundling that 's 

laid at one's door ; 
She combed it and washed it and clothed 

it and fed it, 
And as if 't were her own child most 

tenderly bred it, 
Laid the scene (of the legend, I mean) 

far away a- 
-mong the green vales underneath Hima- 
laya, 
And by artisT*like touches, laid on here 

and there, 
Made the whole thing so touching, I 

frankly declare 
I have read it all thrice, and, perhaps I 

am weak, 
But I found every time there were tears 

on my cheek. 

" The pole, science tells us, the mag- 
net controls, 

But she is a magnet to emigrant Poles, 

And folks with a mission that nobody 
knows, 

Throng thickly about her as bees round 
a rose ; 

She can fill up the carets in such, make 
their scope 



144 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



Converge to some focus of rational -hope, 

And, with sympathies fresh as the morn- 
ing, their gall 

Can transmute into honey, — but this is 
not all ; 

Not only for those she has solace, 0, say, 

Vice's desperate nursling adrift in Broad- 
way, 

Who clingest, with all that is left of thee 
human, 

To the last slender spar from the wreck 
of the woman, 

Hast thou not found one shore where 
those tired drooping feet 

Could reach firm mother-earth, one full 
heart on whose beat 

The soothed head in silence reposing 
could hear 

The chimes of far childhood throb back 
on the ear? 

Ah, there's many a beam from the foun- 
tain of day 

That, to reach us unclouded, must pass, 
on its way, 

Through the soul of a woman, and hers 
is wide ope 

To the influence of Heaven as the blue 
eyes of Hope ; 

Yes, a great heart is hers, one that dares 
to go in 

To the prison, the slave -hut, the alleys 
of sin, 

And to bring into each, or to find there, 
some line 

Of the never completely out-trampled 
divine ; 

If her heart at high floods swamps her 
brain now and then, 

'T is but richer for that when the tide 
ebbs agen, 

As, after old Nile has subsided, his 
plain 

Overflows with a second broad deluge of 
grain ; 

What a wealth would it bring to the 
narrow and sour 

Could they be as a Child but for one lit- 
tle hour ! 

"What! Irving? thrice welcome, 

warm heart and fine brain, 
You bring back the happiest spirit from 

Spain, 
And the gravest sweet humor, that ever 

were there 
Since Cervantes met death in his gentle 

despair ; 



Nay, don't be embarrassed, nor look so 

beseeching, — 
I sha' n't run directly against my own 

preaching, 
And, having just laughed at their Raph- 
aels and Dantes, 
Go to setting you up beside matchless 

Cervantes ; 
But allow me to speak what I honestlv 

feel, - 
To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick 

Steele, 
Throw in all of Addison, minus the 

chill, 
With the whole of that partnership's 

stock and good- will, 
Mix well, and while stirring, hum o'er, 

as a spell, 
The fine old English Gentleman, sim- 
mer it well, 
Sweeten just to your own private liking, 

then strain, 
That only the finest and clearest remain, 
Let it stand out of doors till a soul it 

receives 
From the warm lazy sun loitering down 

through green leaves, 
And you '11 find a choice nature, not 

wholly deserving 
A name either English or Yankee, — 

just Irving. 

" There goes, — but stct nominis um- 
bra, — his name 

You '11 be glad enough, some day or 
other, to claim, 

And will all crowd about him and swear 
that you knew him 

If* some English hack-critic should 
chance to review him. 

The old porcos ante ne projiciatis 

Margaritas, for him you have verified 
gratis ; 

What matters his name ? Why, it may 
be Sylvester, 

Judd, Junior, or Junius, Ulysses, or 
Nestor, 

For aught I know or care ; 't is enough 
that I look 

On the author of * Margaret,' the first 
Yankee book 

With the 'soul of Down East in 't, and 
things farther East, 

As far as the threshold of morning, at 
least, 

Where awaits the fair dawn of the sim- 
ple and true, 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



145 



Of the day that comes slowly to make 

all things new. 
'T has a smack of pine woods, of bare 

field and bleak hill, 
Such as only the breed of the Mayflower 

could till ; 
The Puritan 's shown in it, tough to the 

core, 
Such as prayed, smiting Agag on red 

Marston Moor: 
With an unwilling humor, half choked 

by the drouth 
In brown hollows about the inhospitable 

mouth ; 
With a soul full of poetry, though it has 

qualms 
About rinding a happiness out of the 

Psalms ; 
Full of tenderness, too, though it shrinks 

in the dark, 
Hamadryad-like, under the coarse, shaggy 

bark ; 
That sees visions, knows wrestlings of 

God with the Will, 
And has its own Sinais and thunderings 

still." 

Here, — " Forgive me, Apollo, I 

cried, " while I pour 
My heart out to my birthplace : loved 

more and more 
Dear Baystate, from whose rocky bosom 

thy sons 
Should suck milk, strong-will-giving, 

brave, such as runs 
In the veins of old Graylock — who is it 

that dares 
Call thee pedler, a soul wrapped in bank- 
books and shares ? 
It is false ! She 's a Poet ! I see, as I 

write, 
Along the far railroad the steam-snake 

glide white, 
The cataract-throb of her mill-hearts I 

hear, 
The swift strokes of trip-hammers weary 

my ear, 
Sledges ring upon anvils, through logs 

the saw screams, 
Blocks swing to their place, beetles 

drive home the beams : — 
It is songs such as these that she croons 

to the din 
Of her fast- flying shuttles, year out and 

year in, 
While from earth's farthest corner there 

comes not a breeze 

10 



But wafts her the buzz of her gold- 
gleaning bees : 
What though those horn hands have as 

yet found small time 
For painting and sculpture and music 

and rhyme ? 
These will come in due order ; the need 
that pressed sorest 

Was to vanquish the seasons, the ocean, 
the forest, 

To bridle and harness the rivers, the 
steam, 

Making that whirl her mill-wheels, this 
tug in her team, 

To vassalize old tyrant Winter, and make 

Him delve surlily for her on river and 
lake ; — 

When this ^ew World was parted, she 
strove not to shirk 

Her lot in the heirdom, the tough, si- 
lent Work, 

The hero-share ever, from Herakles down 

To Odin, the Earth's iron sceptre and 
crown : 

Yes, thou dear, noble Mother! if ever 
men's praise 

Could be claimed for creating heroical 
lays, 

Thou hast won it ; if ever the laurel di- 
vine 

Crowned the Maker and Builder, that 
glory is thine ! 

Thy songs are right epic, they tell how 
this rude 

Eock-rib of our earth here was tamed and 
subdued ; 

Thou hast written them plain on the 
face of the planet 

In brave, deathless letters of iron and 
granite ; 

Thou hast printed them deep for all 
time ; they are set 

From the same runic type-fount and 
alphabet 

With thy stout Berkshire hills and the 
arms of thy Bay, — 

They are staves from the burly old May- 
flower lay. 

If the drones of the Old World, in queru- 
lous ease ; 

Ask thy Art and thy Letters, point 
proudly to these, 

Or, if they deny these are Letters and Art, 

Toil on with the same old invincible 
heart ; 

Thou art rearing the pedestal broad- 
based and grand 



146 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



Whereon the fall shapes of the Artist 
shall stand, 

And creating, through labors undaunted 
and long, 

The theme for all Sculpture and Paint- 
ing and Song ! 

' ' But my good mother Baystate wants 

no praise of mine, 
She learned from her mother a precept 

divine 
About something that butters no pars- 
nips, her/orte 
In another direction lies, work is her sport 
(Though she '11 courtesy and set her cap 

straight, that she will, 
If you talk about Plymouth and red 

Bunker's hill). 
Dear, notable goodwife ! by this time of 

night, 
Her hearth is swept clean, and her fire 

burning bright, 
And she sits in a chair (of home plan and 

make) rocking, 
Musing much, all the while, as she darns 

on a stocking, 
Whether turkeys will come pretty high 

next Thanksgiving, 
Whether flour '11 be so dear, for, as sure 

as she 's living, 
She will use rye-and-injun then, whether 

the pig 
By this time ain't got pretty tolerable big, 
And whether to sell it outright will be best, 
Or to smoke hams and shoulders and 

salt down the rest, — 
At this minute, she 'dswop all my verses, 

ah, cruel ! 
For the last patent stove that is saving 

of fuel ; 
So I '11 just let Apollo go on, for his phiz 
Shows I 've kept him awaiting too long 

as it is." 

• "If our friend, there, who seems a 

reporter, is done 
With his burst of emotion, why, / will 

go on," 
Said Apollo ; some smiled, and, indeed, 

I must own 
There was something sarcastic, perhaps, 

in his tone ; — 

6i There's Holmes, who is matchless 
among you for wit ; 
A Leyden-jar always full-charged, from 
which flit 



The electrical tingles of hit after 

hit; 
In long poems 't is painful sometimes, 

and invites 
A thought of the way the new Telegraph 

writes, 
Which pricks down its little sharp sen- 
tences spitefully 
As if you got more than you 'd title to 

rightfully, 
And you find yourself hoping its wild 

father Lightning 
Would flame in for a second and give 

you a fright'ning. 
He has perfect sway of what / call a 

sham metre, 
But many admire it, the English pen- 
tameter, 
And Campbell, I think, wrote most com- 
monly worse, 
With less nerve, swing, and fire i r it-v 

same kind of verse, 
Nor e'er achieved aught in 't so worthy 

of praise 
As the tribute of Holmes to the grand 

Marseillaise. 
You went crazy last year over Bulwer's 

New Timon; — 
Why, if B., to the day of his dying, 

should rhyme on, 
Heaping verses on verses and tomes 

upon tomes, 
He could ne'er reach the best point and 

vigor of Holmes. 
His are just the fine hands, too, to 

weave you a lyric 
Full of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced 

with satyric 
In a measure so kindly, you doubt if 

the toes 
That are trodden upon are your own or 

your foes'. 

"There is Lowell, who's striving 

Parnassus to climb 
With a whole bale of isms tied together 

with rhyme, 
He might get on alone, spite of bram- 
bles and boulders, 
But he can't with that bundle he has on 

his shoulders, 
The top of the hill he will ne'er come 

nigh reaching 
Till he learns the distinction 'twixt 

singing and preaching ; 
His lyre has some chords that would 

ring pretty well^ 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



147 



But he 'd rather by half make a drum 
of the shell, 

And rattle away till he 's old as Me- 
thusalem, 

At the head of a march to the last new- 
Jerusalem. 

" There goes Halleck, whose Fanny 's 

a pseudo Don Juan, 
With the wickedness out that gave salt 

to the true one, 
He 's a wit, though, I hear, of the very 

first order, 
And once made a pun on the words soft 

Recorder ; 
More than this, he's a very great poet, 

I 'm told, 
And has had his works published in 

crimson and gold, 
With something they call ' Illustra- 
tions,' to wit, 
Like those with which Chapman ob- 
scured Holy Writ,* 
Which are said to illustrate, because, as 

I view it, 
Like lucics a non, they precisely don't do 

it; 
Let a man who can write what himself 

understands 
Keep clear, if he can, of designing men's 

hands, 
Who bury the sense, if there's any 

worth having, 
And then very honestly call it engrav- 
ing. 
But, to quit badinage, which there is n't 

much wit in, 
Halleck 's better, I doubt not, than all 

he has written ; 
In his verse a clear glimpse you will 

frequently find, 
If not of a great, of a fortunate mind, 
Which contrives to be true to its natural 

loves 
In a world of back-offices, ledgers, and 

stoves. 
When his heart breaks away from the 

brokers and banks, 
And kneels in his own private shrine to 

give thanks, 
There 's a genial manliness in him that 

earns 
Our sincerest respect (read, for instance, 

his " Burns "), 

* (Cuts rightly called wooden, as all must 
admit.) 



And we can't but regret (seek excuse 
where we may) 

That so much of a man has been ped- 
dled away. 

' 'But what 's that ? a mass-meeting? 
No, there come in lots, 

The American Bulwers, Disraelis, and 
Scotts, 

And in short the American everything- 
elses, 

Each charging the others with envies and 
jealousies ; — 

By the way, 'tis a fact that displays 
what profusions 

Of all kinds of greatness bless free insti- 
tutions, 

That while the Old World has produced 
barely eight 

Of such poets as all men agree to call 
great, 

And of other great characters hardly a 
score 

(One might safely say less than that 
rather than more), 

With you every year a whole crop is 
begotten, 

They 're as much of a staple as corn is, 
or cotton ; 

Why, there 's scarcely a huddle of log- 
huts and shanties 

That has not brought forth its own Mil- 
tons and Dantes ; 

I myself know ten Byrons, one Cole- 
ridge, three Shelleys, 

Two Raphaels, six Titians, (I think) one 
Apelles, 

Leonardos and Rubenses plenty as 
lichens, 

One (but that one is plenty) American 
Dickens, 

A whole flock of Lambs, any number of 
Tennysons, — 

In short, if a man has the luck to have 
any sons, 

He may feel pretty certain that one out 
of twain 

Will be some very great person over again. 

There is one inconvenience in all this, 
which lies 

In the fact that by contrast we estimate 
size,* 

* That is in most cases we do, but not all, 
Past a doubt, there are men who are innately 

small, 
Such as Blank, who, without being 'minished 

a tittle. 
Might stand for a type of the Absolute Little. 



148 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



And, where iliere are none except Ti- 
tans, great stature 
Is only a simple proceeding of nature. 
What puff' the strained sails of your 

praise will you furl at, if 
The calmest degree that you know is 

superlative ? 
At Rome, all whom Charon took into 

his wherry must, 
As a matter of course, be well issimust 

and errimust, 
A Greek, too, could feel, while in that 

famous boat he tost, 
That his friends would take care he was 

icrrost and corarost, 
And formerly we, as through grave- 
yards we past, 
Thought the world went from bad to 

worst fearfully fast ; 
Let us glance for a moment, 't is well 

worth the pains, 
And note what an average graveyard 

contains ; 
There lie levellers levelled, duns done 

up themselves, 
There are booksellers finally laid on their 

shelves, 
Horizontally there lie upright politi- 
cians, 
Dose-a-dose with their patients sleep 

faultless physicians, 
There are slave-drivers quietly whipped 

underground^ 
There bookbinders, done up in boards, 

are fast bound, 
There card-players wait till the last 

trump be played, 
There all the choice spirits get finally 

laid, 
There the babe that 's unborn is supplied 

with a berth, 
There men without legs get their six 

feet of earth, 
There lawyers repose, each wrapped up 

in his case, 
There seekers of office are sure of a 

place, 
There defendant and plaintiff get equally 

cast, 
There shoemakers quietly stick to the 

last, 
There brokers at length become silent 

as stocks, 
There stage -drivers sleep without quit- 
ting their box, 
And so forth and so forth and so forth 

and so on, 



With this kind of stuff one might end- 
lessly go on ; 

To come to the point, I may safely as- 
sert you 

Will find in each yard every cardinal 
virtue ; * 

Each has six truest patriots : four dis- 
coverers of ether, 

Who never had thought on 't nor men- 
tioned it either ; 

Ten poets, the greatest who ever wrote 
rhyme : 

Two hundred and forty first men of 
their time : 

One person whose portrait just gave the 
least hint 

Its original had a most horrible squint : 

One critic, most (what do they call 
it ?) suggestive, 

Who never had used the phrase ob- or 
subjective : 

Forty fathers of Freedom, of whom 
twenty bred 

Their sons for the rice-swamps, at so 
much a head, 

And their daughters for — faugh ! thirty 
mothers of Gracchi : 

Non-resistants who gave many a spirit- 
ual black -eye : 

Eight true friends of their kind, one of 
whom was a jailer: 

Four captains almost as astounding as 
Taylor : 

Two dozen of Italy's exiles who shoot 
us his 

Kaisersliip daily, stern pen-and-ink 
Brutuses, 

Who, in Yankee back-parlors, with 
crucified smile, t 

Mount serenely their country's funereal 
pile : 

Ninety-nine Irish heroes, ferocious re- 
bellers 

'Gainst the Saxon in cis-marine garrets 
and cellars, 

Who shake their dread fists o'er the sea 
and all that, — 

As long as a copper drops into the hat: 

Nine hundred Teutonic republicans 
stark 

From Vaterland's battles just won — in 
the Park, 

* (And at this just conclusion will surely ar- 
rive, 
That the goodness of earth is more dead than 
alive.) 

t Not forgetting their tea and their toast, 
though, the while. 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



149 



Who the happy profession of martyrdom 

take 
Whenever it gives them a chance at a 

steak : 
Sixty-two second Washingtons : two or 

three Jacksons : 
And so many everythings-else that it 

racks one's 
Poor memory too much to continue the 

list, 
Especially now they no longer exist ; — 
I would merely observe that you 've 

taken to giving 
The puffs that belong to the dead to the 

living, 
And that somehow your trump-of-con- 

temporary-doom's tones 
Is tuned after old dedications and tomb- 
stones." 

Here the critic came in and a thistle 

presented — * 
From a frown to a smile the god's fea- 
tures relented, 
As he stared at his envoy, who, swelling 

with pride, 
To the god's asking look, nothing 

daunted, replied, — 
4 * You 're surprised, I suppose, I was 

absent so long, 
But your godship respecting the lilies 

was wrong ; 
I hunted the garden from one end to 

t' other, 
And got no reward but vexation and 

bother, 
Till, tossed out with weeds in a corner 

to wither, 
This one lily I found and made haste to 

bring hither." 

" Did he think I had given him a book 
to review ? 

I ought to have known what the fellow 
would do," 

Muttered Phoebus aside, "for a thistle 
will pass 

Beyond doubt for the queen of all flow- 
ers with an ass ; 

He has chosen in just the same way as 
he 'd choose 

His specimens out of the books he re- 
views ; 

* Turn back now to page — goodness only 
knows what, 
And take a fresh hold on the thread of my 
plot 



And now, as this offers an excellent text, 

I '11 give 'em some brief hints on criti- 
cism next." 

So, musing a moment, he turned t© the 
crowd, 

And, clearing his voice, spoke as follows 
aloud : — . 

' ' My friends, in the happier days of 

the muse, 
We were luckily free from such things 

as reviews ; 
Then naught came between with its fog 

to make clearer 
The heart of the poet to that of his 

hearer ; 
Then the poet brought heaven to the 

people, and they 
Felt that they, too, w T ere poets in hear- 
ing his lay ; 
Then the poet was prophet, the past in 

his soul 
Precreated the future, both parts of one 

whole ; 
Then for him there was nothing too great 

or too small, 
For one natural deity sanctified all ; 
Then the bard owned no clipper and 

meter of moods 
Save the spirit of silence that hovers and 

broods 
O'er the seas and the mountains, the 

rivers and woods ; 
He asked not earth's verdict, forgetting 

the clods, 
His soul soared and sang to an audience 

of gods ; 
'T was for them that he measured the 

thought and the line, 
And shaped for their vision the perfect 

design, 
With as glorious a foresight, a balance 

as true, 
As swung out the worlds in the infinite 

blue; 
Then a glory and greatness invested 

man's heart, 
The universal, w T hich now stands es- 
tranged and apart, 
In the free individual moulded, was 

Art ; 
Then the forms of the Artist seemed 

thrilled with desire 
For something as yet unattained, fuller, 

higher, 
As once with her lips, lifted hands, and 

eves listening, 



150 



A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 



And her whole upward soul in her coun- 
tenance glistening, 
Eurydice stood — like a beacon unfired, 
Which, once touched with flame, will 

leap heav'nward inspired — 
And waited with answering kindle to 

mark 
The first gleam of Orpheus that pained 

the red Dark. 
Then painting, song, sculpture did more 

than relieve 
The need that men feel to create and 

believe, 
A-nd as, in all beauty, who listens with 

love 
rlears these words oft repeated — ' be- 
yond and above,' 
So these seemed to be but the visible 

sign 
Of the grasp of the soul after things more 

divine ; 
They were ladders the Artist erected to 

climb 
O'er the narrow horizon of space and of 

time, 
Vnd we see there the footsteps by which 

men had gained 
To the one rapturous glimpse of the 

never-attained, 
As shepherds could erst sometimes trace 

in the sod 
The last spurning print of a sky-cleaving 

god. 

"But now, on the poet's dis-privacied 
moods 

With do this and do that the pert critic 
intrudes ; 

While he thinks he 's been barely fulfill- 
ing his duty 

To interpret 'twixt men and their own 
sense of beauty, 

And has striven, while others sought 
honor or pelf, 

To make his kind happy as he was him- 
self, 

He finds he 's been guilty of horrid 
offences 

In all kinds of moods, numbers, genders, 
and tenses ; 

He 's been oh and subjective, what Kettle 
calls Pot, 

Precisely, at all events, what he ought not, 

You have done this, says one judge ; 
done that, says another ; 

You should have done this, grumbles 
out, ; that, says 't other ; 



Never mind what he touches, one shrieks 

out Taboo! 
And while he is wondering what he shall 

do, 
Since each suggests opposite topics for 

song, 
They all shout together you're right! 

and you We un-ong ! 

" Nature fits all her children with 
something to do, 

He who would write and can't write, can 
surely review, 

Can set up a small booth as critic and sell 
us his 

Petty conceit and his pettier jealousies ; 

Thus a lawyer's apprentice, just out of 
his teens, 

Will do for the Jeffrey of six maga- 
zines ; 

Having read Johnson's lives of the poets 
' half through, 

There 's nothing on earth he 's not com- 
petent to ; 

He reviews with as much nonchalance as 
he whistles, — 

He goes through a book and just picks 
out the thistles ; 

It matters not whether he blame or com- 
mend, 

If he 's bad as a foe, he 's far worse as a 
friend : 

Let an author but write what 's above his 
poor scope, 

He goes to work gravely and twists up a 
rope, 

And, inviting the world to see punish- 
ment done, 

Hangs himself up to bleach in the wind 
and the sun ; 

'T is delightful to see, when a man comes 
along 

Who has anything in him peculiar and 
strong, 

Every cockboat that swims clear its fierce 
(pop) gundeck at him, 

And make as he passes its ludicrous Peck 
at him — " 

Here Miranda came up and began, 

"As to that — " 
Apollo at once seized his gloves, cane, 

and hat, 
And, seeing the place getting rapidly 

cleared, 
I, too, snatched my notes and forthwith 

disappeared. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 



[I have observed, reader (bene- or male- 
volent, as it may happen), that it is cus- 
tomary to append to the second editions of 
books, and to the second works of authors, 
short sentences commendatory of the first, 
under the title of Notices of the Press. 
These, I have been given to understand, 
are procurable at certain established rates, 
payment being made either in money or 
advertising patronage by the publisher, or 
by an adequate outlay of servility on the 
part of the author. Considering these 
things with myself, and also that such 
notices are neither intended, nor generally 
believed, to convey any real opinions, be- 
ing a purely ceremonial accompaniment of 
literature, and resembling certificates to the 
virtues of various morbiferal panaceas, I 
conceived that it would be not only more 
economical to prepare a sufficient number 
of such myself, but also more immediately 
subservient to the end in -view to prefix 
them to this our primary edition rather 
than await the contingency of a second, 
when they would seem to be of small util- 
ity. To delay attaching the bobs until the 
second attempt at flying the kite would 
indicate but a slender experience in that 
useful art. Neither has it escaped my 
notice, nor failed to afford me matter of 
reflection, that, when a circus or a caravan 
is about to visit Jaalam, the initial step 
is to send forward large and highly orna- 
mented bills of performance to be hung in 
the bar-room and the post-office. These 
having been sufficiently gazed at, and be- 
ginning to lose their attractiveness except 
for the flies, and, truly, the boys also (in 
whom I find it impossible to repress, even 
during school-hours, certain oral and tele- 
graphic communications concerning the 
expected show), upon some fine morning 
the band enters in a gayly painted wagon, 
or triumphal chariot, and with noisy ad- 
vertisement, by means of brass, wood, and 
sheepskin, makes the circuit of our startled 
village streets. Then, as the exciting 
sounds draw nearer and nearer, do I de- 



siderate those eyes of Aristarchus, " whose 
looks were as a breeching to a boy." 
Then do I perceive, with vain regret 
of wasted opportunities, the advantage 
of a pancratic or pantechnic education, 
since he is most reverenced b^ my little 
subjects who can throw the cleanest sum- 
merset or walk most securely upon the 
revolving cask. The story of the Pied 
Piper becomes for the first time credible 
to me (albeit confirmed by the Hameliners 
dating their legal instruments from the 
period of his exit), as I behold how those 
strains, without pretence of magical po- 
tency, bewitch the pupillary legs, nor 
leave to the pedagogic an entire self-con- 
trol. For these reasons, lest my kingly 
prerogative should suffer diminution, I 
prorogue my restless commons, whom I 
follow into the street, chiefly lest some 
mischief may chance befall them. After 
the manner of such a band, I send forward 
the following notices of domestic manufac- 
ture, to make brazen proclamation, not 
unconscious of the advantage which will 
accrue, if our little craft, cymbula sutilis, 
shall seem to leave port with a clipping 
breeze, and to carry, in nautical phrase, a 
bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have 
chosen, as being more equitable, to pre- 
pare some also sufficiently objurgatory, 
that readers of every taste may find a dish 
to their palate. I have modelled them 
upon actually existing specimens, pre- 
served in my own cabinet of 'natural curios- 
ities. One, in particular, I had copied with 
tolerable exactness from a notice of one 
of my own discourses, which, from its su- 
perior tone and appearance of vast experi- 
ence, I concluded to have been written by 
a man at least three hundred years of age, 
though I recollected no existing instance 
of such antediluvian longevity. Never- 
theless, I afterwards discovered the author 
to be a young gentleman preparing for the 
ministry under the direction of one of my 
brethren in a neighboring town, and whom 
I had once instinctively corrected in a 



154 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Latin quantity. But this I have been 
forced to omit, from its too great length. 
— H. W.] 



From the Universal Littery Universe. 
Full of passages which rivet the attention of 
the reader Under a rustic garb, senti- 
ments are conveyed which should be committed 
to the memory and engraven on the heart of 
every moral and social being We con- 
sider this a unique performance We 

hope to see it soon introduced into our common 

schools Mr. Wilbur has performed his 

duties as editor with excellent taste and judg- 
ment This is a vein which we hope to 

see successfully prosecuted We hail the 

appearance of this work as a long stride toward 
the formation of a purely aboriginal, indige- 
nous, native, and American literature. We re- 
joice to meet with an author national enough 
to break away from the slavish deference, too 
common among us, to English grammar and 

orthography Where all is so good, we 

are at a loss how to make extracts On 

the whole, we may call it a volume which no 
library, pretending to entire completeness, 
should fail to place upon its shelves. 



From the Higginbottomopolis Snapping-lurtle. 

A collection of the merest balderdash and 
doggerel that it was ever our bad fortune to 
lay eyes on. The author is a vulgar buffoon, 
and the editor a talkative, tedious old fool. 
We use strong language, but should any of our 
readers peruse the book, (from which calamity 
Heaven preserve them !) they will find reasons 
for it thick as the leaves of Vallumbrozer, or, 
to use a still more expressive comparison, as 
the combined heads of author and editor. The 

work is wretchedly got up We should 

like to know how much British gold was pock- 
eted by this libeller of our country and her 
purest patriots. . 



From the Oldfogrumville Mentor. 

We have not had time to do more than glance 
through this handsomely printed volume, but 
the name of its respectable editor, the Rev. Mr. 
Wilbur, of Jaalam, will afford a sufficient guar- 
anty for the worth of its contents The 

paper is white, the type clear, and the volume 

of a convenient and attractive size In 

reading this elegantly executed work, it has 
seemed, to us that a passage or two might have 
been retrenched with advantage, and that the 
general style of diction was susceptible of a 

higher polish On the Avhole, we may 

safely leave the ungrateful task of criticism to 
the reader. We will barely suggest, that in 
volumes intended, as this is, for the illustration 
of a provincial dialect and turns of expression, 
a dash of humor or satire might be thrown in 

with advantage The work is admirably 

got up This work will form an appro- 
priate ornament to the centre-table. It is 
beautifully printed, on paper of an excellent 
quality. 



From the Dekay Bulwark. 

We should be wanting in our duty as the 
conductor of that tremendous engine, a public 
press, as an American, and as a man, did we 
allow such an opportunity as is presented to us 
by "The Biglow Papers" to pass by without 
entering our earnest protest against such at- 
tempts (now, alas ! too common) at demoraliz- 
ing the public sentiment. Under a wretched 
mask of stupid drollery, slavery, war, the so- 
cial glass, and, in short, all the valuable and 
time-honored institutions justly dear to our 
common humanity and especially to republi- 
cans, are made the butt of coarse and senseless 
ribaldry by this low-minded scribbler. It is 
time that the respectable and religious portion 
of our community should be aroused to the 
alarming inroads of foreign Jacobinism, sans- 
culottism, and infidelity. It is a fearful proof 
of the wide-spread nature of this contagion, 
that these secret stabs at religion and virtue 
are given from under the cloak (credite, posteri !) 
of a clergyman. It is a mournful spectacle in- 
deed to the patriot and Christian to see liber- 
ality and new ideas (falsely so called, — they 
are as old as Eden) invading the sacred pre- 
cincts of the pulpit On the whole, we 

consider this volume as one of the first shock- 
ing results which we predicted would spring 
out of the late French " Revolution " (!). 



From the Bungtown Copper and Comprehensive 
Tocsin (a try-weakly family journal). 

Altogether an admirable work Full 

of humor, boisterous, but delicate, — of wit 
withering and scorching, yet combined with a 
pathos cool as morning dew, — of satire pon- 
derous as the mace of Richard, yet keen as the 

scymitar of Saladin A work full of 

" mountain-mirth," mischievous as Puck, and 

lightsome as Ariel We know not whether 

to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive 
concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, 
weird imagination, and compass of style, at 

once both objective and subjective We 

might indulge in some criticisms, but, were the 
author other than he is, he would be a different 
being. As it is, he has a wonderful pose, which 
flits from flower to flower, and bears the reader 
irresistibly along on its eagle pinions (like Gany- 
mede) to the "highest heaven of invention." 

.... We love a book so purely objective 

Many of his pictures of natural scenery have an 
extraordinary subjective clearness and fidelity. 
.... In fine, we consider this as one of the 
most extraordinary volumes of this or any age. 
We know of no English author who could have 
written it. It is a work to which the proud 
genius of our country, standing with one foot 
on the Aroostook and the other on the Rio 
Grande, and holding up the star-spangled ban- 
ner amid the wreck of matter and the crush of 
worlds, may point with bewildering scorn of the 

punier efforts of enslaved Europe We 

hope soon to encounter our author among those 
higher walks of literature in which he is evi- 
dently capable of achieving enduring fame. 
Already we should be inclined to assign him a 
high position in the bright galaxy of our Amer- 
ican bards. 



NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PKESS. 



155 



From the Saltriver Pilot and Flag of Freedom. 

A volume in bad grammar and worse taste. 
.... While the pieces here collected were con- 
fined to their appropriate sphere in the corners 
of obscure newspapers, we considered them 
wholly beneath contempt, but, as the author 
has chosen to come forward in this public 
manner, he must expect the lash he so richly 

merits Contemptible slanders 

Vilest Billingsgate Has raked all the 

gutters of our language The most pure, 

upright, and consistent politicians not safe 
from his malignant venom General dish- 
ing comes in for a share of his vile calumnies. 
.... The Reverend Homer "Wilbur is a disgrace 
to his cloth 



From the World-Harmonic-JEolian- Attachment 
Speech is silver : silence is golden. No ut- 
terance more Orphic than this. While, there- 
fore, as highest author, we reverence him whose 
works continue heroically unwritten, we have 
also our hopeful word for those who with pen 
(from wing of goose loud-cackling, or seraph 
God-commissioned) record the thing that is re- 
vealed Under mask of quaintest irony, 

we detect here the deep, storm-tost (nigh ship- 
wracked) soul, thunder-scarred, semi-articu- 
late, but ever climbing hopefully toward the 
peaceful summits of an Infinite Sorrow. .... 
Yes, thou poor, forlorn Hosea, with Hebrew 
fire-flaming soul in thee, for thee also this life 
of ours has not been without its aspects of 
heavenliest pity and laughingest mirth. Con- 
ceivable enough ! Through coarse Thersites- 
cloak, we have revelation of the heart, wild- 
glowing, world-clasping, that is in him. Brave- 
ly he grapples with the life-problem as it pre- 
sents itself to him, uncombed, shaggy, careless 
of the " nicer proprieties," inexpert of " elegant 
diction," yet with voice audible enough to 
whoso hath ears, up there on the gravelly side- 
hills, or down on the splashy, indiarubber-like 
salt-marshes of native Jaalam. To this soul 
also the Necessity of Creating somewhat has un- 
veiled its awful front. If not GMipuses and 
Electras and Alcestises, then in God's name 
Birdofredum Sa wins ! These also shall get born 
into the world, and filch (if so need) a Zingali 
subsistence therein, these lank, omnivorous 
Yankees of his. He shall paint the Seen, since 
the Unseen will not sit to him. Yet in him 
also are Nibelungen-lays, and Iliads, and Ulys- 
ses-wanderings, and Divine Comedies, — if only 
once he could come at them ! Therein lies 
much, nay all ; for what truly is this which we 
name All, but that which we do not possess? 
.... Glimpses also are given us of an old 
father Ezekiel, not without paternal pride, as 
is the wont of such. A brown, parchment- 
hided old man of the geoponic or bucolic spe- 
cies, gray-eyed, we fancy, queued perhaps, with 
much weather-cunning and plentiful Septem- 
ber-gale memories, bidding fair in good time 
to become the Oldest Inhabitant. After such 
hasty apparition, he vanishes and is seen no 

more Of "Rev. Homer Wilbur, A.M., 

Pastor of the First Church in Jaalam," we have 
small care to speak here. Spare touch in him 
of his Melesigenes namesake, save, haply, the 
— blindness ! A tolerably caliginose, nephe- 



legeretous elderly gentleman, with infinite fac- 
ulty of sermonizing, muscularized by long prac- 
tice, and excellent digestive apparatus, and, for 
the rest, well-meaning enough, and with small 
private illuminations (somewhat tallowy, it is 
to be feared) of his own. To him, there, "Pastor 
of the First Church in Jaalam," our Hosea pre- 
sents himself as a quite inexplicable Sphinx- 
riddle. A rich poverty of Latin and Greek, — 
so far is clear enough, even to eyes peering my- 
opic through horn-lensed editorial spectacles, 
— but naught farther ? O purblind, well-mean- 
ing, altogether fuscous Melesigenes-Wilbur, 
there are things in him incommunicable by 
stroke of birch ! Did it ever enter that old be- 
wildered head of thine that there was the Pos- 
sibility of the Infinite in him ? To thee, quite 
wingless (and even featherless) biped, has not 
so much even as a dream of wings ever come ? 
"Talented young parishioner"? Among the 
Arts whereof thou art Magister, does that of 
seeing happen to be one? Unhappy Artium 
Magister ! Somehow a Nemean lion, fulvous, 
torrid-eyed, dry-nursed in broad-howjing sand- 
wildernesses of a sufficiently rare spirit-Libya 
(it may be supposed) has got whelped among 
the sheep. Already he stands wild-glaring, with 
feet clutching the ground as with oak-roots, 
gathering for a Remus-spring over the walls of 
thy little fold. In Heaven's name, go not near 
him with that flybite crook of thine ! In good 
time, thou painful preacher, thou wilt goto the 
appointed place of departed Artillery-Election 
Sermons, Right-Hands of Fellowship, and Re- 
sults of Councils, gathered to thy spiritual 
fathers with much Latin of the Epitaphial sort ; 
thou, too, shalt have thy reward ; but on him 
the Eumenides have looked, not Xantippes of 
the pit, snake-tressed, finger-threatening, but 
radiantly calm as on antique gems ; for him 
paws impatient the winged courser of the gods, 
champing unwelcome bit ; him the starry deeps, 
the empyrean glooms, and far-flashing splen- 
dors await. 



From the Onion Grove Phoenix. 

A talented young townsman of ours, recently 
returned from a Continental tour, and who is 
already favorably known to our readers by his 
sprightly letters from abroad which have graced 
our columns, called at our office yesterday. We 
learn from him, that, having enjoyed the dis- 
tinguished privilege, while in Germany, of an 
introduction to the celebrated Von Humbug, 
he took the opportunity to present that emi- 
nent man with a copy of the " Biglow Papers." 
The next morning he received the following 
note, which he has kindly furnished us for 
publication. We prefer to print it verbatim, 
knowing that our readers will readily forgive 
the few errors into which the illustrious writer 
has fallen, through ignorance of our language. 

" High- Worthy Mister ! 
" I shall also now especially happy starve, 
because I have more or less a work of one those 
aboriginal Red-Men seen in which have I so 
deaf an interest ever taken full-worthy on the 
self shelf with our Gottsched to be upset. 

"Pardon my in the English-speech un-prac- 
tice! 

"Von Humbug." 



156 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



He also sent with the above note a copy of his 
famous work on " Cosmetics," to be presented 
to Mr. Biglow; but this was taken from our 
friend by the English custom-house officers, 
probably through a petty national spite. No 
doubt, it has by this time found its way into 
the British Museum. We trust this outrage 
will be exposed in all our American papers. 
We shall do our best to bring it to the notice 
of the State Department. Our numerous read- 
ers will share in the pleasure we experience at 
seeing our young and vigorous national litera- 
ture thus encouragingly patted on the head by 
this venerable and world-renowned German. 
We love to see these reciprocations of good- 
feeling between the different branches of the 
great Anglo-Saxon race. 

[The following genuine " notice" having 
met my eye, I gladly insert a portion of it 
here, the more especially as it contains 
one of Mr. Biglow's poems not elsewhere 
printed. — H. W.] 

From the Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss. 

.... But, while we lament to see our young 
townsman thus mingling in the heated contests 
of party politics, we think we detect in him the 
presence of talents which, if properly directed, 
might give an hmocent pleasure to many. As 
a proof that he is competent to the production 
of other kinds of poetry, we copy for our read- 
ers a short fragment of a pastoral by him, the 
manuscript of which was loaned us by a friend. 
The title of it is "The Courtin'." 

Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown, 

An' peeked in thru the winder, 
An' there sot Huldy all alone, 

'ith no one nigh to hender. 

Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung, 

An' in amongst 'em rusted 
The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young 

Fetched back frum Concord busted. 

The wannut logs shot sparkles out 
Towards the pootiest, bless her ! 



An' leetle fires danced all about 
The chiny on the dresser. 

The very room, coz she wuz in, 
Looked warm frum floor to ceilin', 

An' she looked full ez rosy agin 
Ez th' apples she wuz peelin*. 

She heerd a foot an' knowed it, tu, 

Araspin' on the scraper, — 
All ways to once her feelins flew 

Like sparks in burnt-up paper. 

He kin' o' l'itered on the mat, 
Some doubtfle o' the seekle ; 
_His heart kep' goin' pitypat, 
But hern went pity Zekle. 

An' yet she gin her cheer a jerk 
Ez though she wished him furder 

An' on her apples kep' to work 
Ez ef a wager spurred her. 

" You want to see my Pa, I spose?" 
" Wal, no ; I come designin' — " 

" To see my Ma? She 's sprinklin' clo'es 
Agin to-morrow's i'nin'." 

He stood a spell on one foot fust 

Then stood a spell on tother, 
An' on which one he felt the wust 

He could n't ha' told ye, nuther. 

Sez he, " I 'd better call agin " ; 

Sez she, " Think likely, Mister" ; 
The last word pricked him like a pin, 

An' — wal, he up and kist her. 

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, 

Huldy sot pale ez ashes, 
All kind o' smily round the lips 

An' teary round the lashes. 

Her blood riz quick, though, like the tide 

Down to the Bay o' Fundy, 
An' all I know is they wuz cried 

In meetin', come nex Sunday. 



Satis nrnltis sese emptores futuros libri 
professis, Georgius Nichols, Cantabrigien- 
sis, opus emittet de parte' gravi sed adhuc 
neglecta historian naturalis, cum titulo 
sequenti, videlicet : 

Conatus ad Delineationem naturalem 
nonnihil perfectiorem Scarabcei Bombila- 
toris, vulgo dicti Humbug, ab Homero 
Wilbur, Artium Magistro, Societatis 
historico-natnralis Jaalamensis Preside 
(Secretario, Socioque (eheu !) singulo), 
multarumque aliarum Societatum erudi- 
tarum (sive ineruditarum) tarn domesti- 
carum quam transmarinarum Socio — for- 
sitan futuro. 



PROEMIUM. 

Lectori Benevolo S. 

Toga scholastica nondum deposita, quum 
systemata varia entomologica, a viris ejus 
sciential cultoribus studiosissimis summa 
diligentia aedificata, penitus indagassem, 
non fuit quin luctuose omnibus in iis, 
quamvis aliter laude dignissimis, hiatum 
magni momenti perciperem. Tunc, nescio 
quo motu superiore impulsus, aut qua 
captus dulcedine operis, ad eum implen- 
dum (Curtius alter) me solemniter devovi. 
Nee ab isto labore, fiat/aon'w? imposito, ab- 
stinui antequam tractatulum sufficienter 
inconcinnum lingua vernacula perfeceram. 
Inde, juveniliter tumefactus, et barathro 



NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 



157 



ineptiae r&v /3i£Aio7rcoAwv (necnon "Publici 
Legentis ") misquam explorato, me com- 
posuisse quod quasi placentas praefervidas 
(at sic dicani) homines ingurgitarent cre- 
didi. Sed, quum liuic et alio bibliopolse 
MSS. mea subniisissem et nihil solidius 
responsione valde negativa in Musaeum 
meum retulissem, horror ingens atque 
misericordia, ob crassitudinem Lamber- 
tianam in cerebris homunculorum istius 
luiuieris coelesti quadam ira infixam, me 
invasere. Extemplo mei solius impensis 
lib rum edere decrevi, nihil omnino du- 
bitans quin " Mundus Scientificus " (ut 
aiunt) crumenam meam ampliter repleret. 
Nullam, attamen, ex agro illo meo parvulo 
segetem demessui, praeter gaudium vacuum 
bene de Republica merendi. Iste panis 
meus pretiosus super aquas literarias faecu- 
lentas praefidenter jactus, quasi Harpyi- 
arum quarundam (scilicet bibliopolarum 
istorum facinorosorum supradictorum) tac- 
tu rancidus, intra perpaucos dies mihi 
domum rediit. Et, quum ipse tali victu 
ali non tolerarem, primum in mentem 
ven it pistori (typographo nempe) niliilo- 
minus solvendum esse. Aniinum non id- 
circo demisi, imo aeque ac pueri naviculas 
suas penes se lino retinent (eo ut e recto 
cursu delapsas ad ripani retrahant), sic 
ego Argo meam chartaceam fluctibus la- 
boranteni a quaesitu velleris aurei, ipse 
potius tonsus pelleque exutus, mente so- 
iida revocavi. Metaphoram ut mutem. 
boomarangam meam a scopo aberrantem 
retraxi, dum majore vi, occasione minis- 
trante, ad versus Fortimam intorquerem. 
Ast mihi, talia volventi, et, sicut Saturnus 
ille 7rat5oj3dpo?, liberos intellectus mei de- 
pascere fidenti, casus miserandus, nee an- 
tea inauditus, supervenit. Nam, ut ferunt 
Scythas pietatis causa et parsimoniae, pa- 
rentes suos mortuos devorasse, sic films hie 
meus primogenitus, Scythis ipsis minus 
mansuetus, patrem vivum totum et cal- 
citra ntem exsorbere enixus est. Nee ta- 
raen hac de causa sobolein meam esurien- 
tem exheredavi. Sed famem istam pro 
valido testimonio virilitatis roborisque 
potius habui, cibumque ad earn satiandam, 
salva patera a mea carne, petii. Et quia 
bilem illam scaturientem ad aes etiam con- 
coquendum idoneam esse estimabam, unde 
a^s alienum, ut minoris pretii, haberem, 
circumspexi. Rebus ita se habentibus, 
ab avunculo meo Johanne Doolittle, Ar- 
migero, impetravi ut pecunias necessarias 
suppeditaret, ne opus esset mihi universi- 
tatem relinquendi antequam ad gradum 
primum in artibus pervenissem. Tunc ego, 
salvum facere patronum meum munificum 
maxime cupiens, omnes libros primae edi- 
tionis operis mei non venditos una cum 



privilegio in omne aevum ejusdem impri- 
mendi et edendi avunculo meo dicto pig- 
neravi. Ex illo die, atro lapide notando, 
curae vociferantes familiae singulis annis 
crescentis eo usque insultabant ut nun- 
quam tarn carum pignus e vinculis istis 
aheneis solvere possem. 

Avunculo vero nuper mortuo, quum 
inter alios consanguineos testamenti ejus 
lectionem audiendi causa advenissem, erec- 
tis auribus verba talia sequentia accepi : 
— " Quoniam persuasum habeo meum di- 
lectum nepotem Homerum, longa et inti- 
ma rerum angustarum donii experientia, 
aptissimum esse qui divitias tueatur, bene- 
ficenterque ac prudenter iis divinis credi- 
tis utatur, — ergo, motus hisce cogitatio- 
nibus, exque amore meo in ilium magno, 
do, legoque nepoti caro meo suprauoniina- 
to omnes singularesque istas possessiones 
nee ponderabiles nee computabiles meas 
quae sequuntur, scilicet : quingentos libros 
quos mihi pigneravit dictus Homerus, anno 
lucis 1792, cum privilegio edendi et repe- 
tendi opus istud i scientificum ' (quod di- 
cunt) suum, si sic elegerit. Tamen D. O. 
M. precor oculos Homeri nepotis mei ita 
aperiat eumque moveat, ut libros istos in 
bibliotlieca unius e plurimis castellis suis 
Hispaniensibus tuto abscondat." 

His verbis (vix credibilibus) auditis, 
cor meum in pectore exsultavit. Deinde, 
quoniam tractatus Anglice scriptus spem 
auctoris fefellerat, quipjie quum stadium 
Historian Naturalis in Republica nostra 
inter factionis strepitum languescat, La- 
tine -versum edere statui, et eo potius quia 
nescio quomodo disciplina academica et 
duo diplomata proficiant, nisi quod peritos 
linguarum omnino mortuarum (et dam- 
n and arum, ut dicebat iste -n-avovpyos Guli- 
elmus Cobbett) nos faciant. 

Et mihi adhuc superstes est tota ilia 
editio prima, quam quasi crepitaculum 
per quod dentes caninos dentibam retineo. 



OPERIS SPECIMEN. 

(Ad exeinplum Johannis Physiophili speciminis 
Monachologice.) 

12. S. B. Militaris, Wilbur. Carnifex, Ja- 
blonsk. Pro/anus, Desfont. 

[Male hancce speciem Cyclopem Fabricius vo- 
cat, ut qui singulo oculo ad quod sui interest 
distinguitur. Melius vero Isaacus Outis nul- 
lum inter S. milit. S. que Eelzebul (Fabric. 
152) discrimen esse defendit] 

Habitat civitat, Amerid. austral. 

Aureis lineis splendidus ; i^lerumque tamen 
sordidus, utpote lanienas valde frequentans, 
foetore sanguinis allectus. Am at quoque iusu- 
per septa apricari, neque inde, nisi maxima 
conatione detruditur. Candidatus ergo popu- 
lariter vocatus. Caput cristam quasi penna- 



158 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



rum ostendit. Pro cibo vaccam publicam cal- 
lide mulget ; abdomen enorme ; facultas suctus 
haud facile estimanda. Otiosus, fatuus ; ferox 
nihilominus, semperque dimicare paratus. 
Tortuose repit. 

Capite ssepe maxima cum cura dissecto, lie 
illud rudimentum etiam cerebri commune om- 
nibus prope insectis detegere poteram. 

Unam de hoc S. milit. rem singularem notavi; 
nam S. Guineens. (Fabric. 143) servos facit, et 
idcirco a multis summa in reverentia habitus, 
quasi scintillas rationis psene humanse denion- 
strans. 



24. S. B. Criticus, Wilbur. Zoilus, Fabric. 
Pygmcmis, Carlsen. 

[Stultissime Johannes StryxcumS. punctato 
(Fabric. 64-109) confundit. Specimina quam- 
plurima scrutationi microscopical subjeci, nun- 
quam tamen ununi ulla indicia puncti cujusvis 
prorsus ostendentem inveni.] 

Prsecipue formidolosus, insectatusque, in 
proxima rima anonyma sese abscondit, tue, we, 
ereberriine stridens. Ineptus, segnipes. 

Habitat ubique gentium ; in sicco ; nidum 
suum terebratione indefessa sedincans. Cibus. 
Libros depascit ; siccos prsecipue. 



MELIBCEUS-HIPPONAX. 



THE 



B i g 1 ore J) ap tx&, 

EDITED, 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, GLOSSARY, AND 
COPIOUS INDEX, 

BY 

HOMER WILBUR, A. M., 

PASTOR OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN JAALAM, AND (PROSPECTIVE) MEMBER OF MANY 
LITERARY, LEARNED, AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES, 

[for which see page 173.) 

The ploughman's whistle, or the trivial flutei 
Finds more respect than great Apollo's lute. 

Quarks' s Emblems, B. ii. E. 8. 

Margaritas, munde porcine, calcasti : en, siliquas accipe. 

Jac. Cur. Fit. ad Pub. Leg. § 1. 



NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE. 



It will not have escaped the attentive 
eye, that I have, on the title-page, omitted 
those honorary appendages to the editorial 
name which not only add greatly to the 
value of every book, but whet and exacer- 
bate the appetite of the reader. For not 
only does he surmise that an honorary 
membership of literary and scientific so- 
cieties implies a certain amount of neces- 
sary distinction on the part of the recipient 
of such decorations, but he is willing to 
trust himself more entirely to an author 
who writes under the fearful responsibility 
of involving the reputation of such bodies 
as the & Archceol. Dahom. or the Acad. 
Lit. et Scient. Kamtschot. I cannot but 
think that the early editions of Shake- 
speare and Milton would have met with 
more rapid and general acceptance, but for 
the barrenness of their respective title- 
pages ; and I believe that, even now, a 
publisher of the works of either of those 
justly distinguished men would find his 
account in procuring their admission to 
the membership of learned bodies on the 
Continent, — a proceeding no whit more 
incongruous than the reversal of the judg- 
ment against Socrates, when he was al- 
ready more than twenty centuries beyond 
the reach of antidotes, and when his mem- 
ory had acquired a deserved respectability. 
I conceive that it was a feeling of the im- 
portance of this precaution which induced 
Mr. Locke to style himself "Gent.'' on 
the title-page of his Essay, as who should 
say to his readers that they could receive 
his metaphysics on the honor of a gentle- 
man. 

Nevertheless, finding that, without de- 
scending to a smaller size of type than 
would have been compatible with the dig- 
nity of the several societies to be named, 
I could not compress my intended list 
within the limits of a single page, and 
thinking, moreover, that the act would 
carry with it an air of decorous modesty, 
I have chosen to take the reader aside, as 
it were, into my private closet, and there 



not only exhibit to him the diplomas 
which I already possess, but also to fur- 
nish him with a prophetic vision of those 
which I may, without undue presumption, 
hope for, as not beyond the reach of hu- 
man ambition and attainment. And I am 
the rather induced to this from the fact 
that my name has been unaccountably 
dropped from the last triennial catalogue 
of our beloved Alma Mater. Whether 
this is to be attributed to the difficulty of 
Latinizing any of those honorary adjuncts 
(with a complete list of which I took care 
to furnish the proper persons nearly a 
year beforehand), or whether it had its 
origin in any more culpable motives, I 
forbear to consider in this place, the mat- 
ter being in course of painful investiga- 
tion. But, however this may be, I felt 
the omission the more keenly, as I had, in 
expectation of the new catalogue, enriched 
the library of the Jaalam Athenaeum with 
the old one then in my possession, by 
which means it has come about that my 
children will be deprived of a never-weary- 
ing winter-evening's amusement in looking 
out the name of their parent in that dis- 
tinguished .roll. Those harmless inno- 
cents had at least committed no but 

I forbear, having intrusted my reflections 
and animadversions on this painful topic 
to the safe-keeping of my private diary, 
intended for posthumous publication. I 
state this fact here, in order that certain 
nameless individuals, who are, perhaps, 
overmuch congratulating themselves upon 
my silence, may know that a rod is in 
pickle which the vigorous hand of a justly 
incensed posterity will apply to their 
memories. 

The careful reader will note that, in 
■the list which I have prepared, I have 
included the names of several Cisatlantic 
societies to which a place is not commonly 
assigned in processions of this nature. I 
have ventured to do this, not only to en- 
courage native ambition and genius, but 
also because I have never been able to 



NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE. 



161 



perceive in what way distance (unless we 
suppose them at the end of a lever) could 
increase the weight of learned bodies. As 
far as I have been able to extend my re- 
searches among such stuffed specimens as 
occasionally reach America, I have dis- 
covered no generic difference between the 
antipodal Fogrum Japonicum and the F. 
Americanum sufficiently common in our 
own immediate neighborhood. Yet, with 
a becoming deference to the popular be- 
lief that distinctions of this sort are en- 
hanced in value by every additional mile 
they travel, I have intermixed the names 
of some tolerably distant literary and oth- 
er associations with the rest. 

I add here, also, an advertisement, 
which, that it may be the more readily 
understood by those persons especially 
interested therein, I have written in that 
curtailed and otherwise maltreated canine 
Latin, to the writing and reading of which 
they are accustomed. 

Omnib. per tot. Orb. Terrar. 
Catalog. Academ. Edd. 

Minim, gent, diplom. ab inclytiss. acad. 
vest, orans, vir. honorand. operosiss., at 
sol. ut sciat. quant, glor. nom. meum 
(dipl. fort, concess.) catal/ vest. temp, 
futur. affer., ill. subjec, addit. omnib. 
titul. honorar. qu. adh. non tant. opt. 
quam probab. put. 

*** Litt. Uncial, distinx. ut Frees. S. 
Hist. Nat. Jaal. 



HOMERUS WILBUR, Mr., Episc. 
Jaalam, S. T. D. 1850, et Yal. 1849, et 
Neo-Caes. et Brun. et Gulielm. 1852, et 
Gul. et Mar. et Bowd. et Georgiop. et 
Viridimont. et Columb. Nov. Ebor. 1853, 
et Amherst, et Watervill. et S. Jarlath. 
Hib. et S. Mar. et S. Joseph, et S. And. 
Scot. 1854, et Nashvill. et Dart, et Dickins. 
et Concord, et Wash, et Columbian, et 
Chariest, et Jeff, et Dubl. et Oxon. et 
Cantab, et Cset. 1855, P. U. N. C. H. et 
J. U. D. Gott. et Osnab. et Heidelb. 1860, 
et Acad. Bore us. Berolin. Soc, et SS. 
RE. Lugd. Bat. et Patav. et Lond. et 
Edinb. et Ins. Feejee. et Null. Terr, et 
Pekin. Soc. Hon. et S. H. S. et S. P. A. 
et A. A. S. et S. Humb. Univ. et S. Omn. 
Rer. Quarund. q. Aliar. Promov. Passa- 
maquod. et H. P. C. et I. 0. H. et A. A. 
3>. et II. K. P. et $. B. K. et Peucin. et 
Erosoph. et Philadelph. et Frat. in Unit, 
et 2- T. et S. Archseolog. Athen. et Acad. 
Scient. et Lit. Panorm. et SS. R. H. 
Matrit. et Beeloochist. et Caffrar. et Caribb. 
et M. S. Reg. Paris, et S. Am. Antiserv. 
Soc. Hon. et P. D. Gott. et LL. D. 1852, 
et D. C. L. et Mus. Doc. Oxon. 1860, et 
M. M. S. S. et M. D. 1854, et Med. Fac. 
Univ. Harv. Soc. et S. pro Convers. Polly- 
wog. Soc. Hon. et Higgl. Piggl. et LL. B. 
1853, et S. pro Christianiz. Moschet. Soc. . 
et SS. Ante-Diluv. ubiq. Gent. Soc. Hon. 
et Civit. Cleric. Jaalam et S. pro Diffus. 
General. Tenebr. Secret. Corr. 



INTRODUCTION 



When, more than three years ago, my 
talented young parishioner, Mr. Biglow, 
came to me and submitted to my animad- 
versions the first of his poems which he 
intended to commit to the more hazardous 
trial of a city newspaper, it never so much 
as entered my imagination to conceive that 
his productions would ever be gathered 
into a fair volume, and ushered into the 
august presence of the reading public by 
myself. So little are we short-sighted 
mortals able to predict the event ! I con- 
fess that there is to me a quite new satis- 
faction in being associated (though only 
as sleeping partner) in a book which can 
stand by itself in an independent unity on 
the shelves of libraries. For there is always 
this drawback from the pleasure of print- 
ing a sermon, that, whereas the queasy 
stomach of this generation will not bear 
a discourse long enough to make a sepa- 
rate volume, those religious and godly- 
minded children (those Samuels, if I may 
call them so) of the brain must at first lie 
buried in an undistinguished heap, and 
then get such resurrection as is vouchsafed 
to them, mummy-wrapped with a score 
of others in a cheap binding, with no other 
mark of distinction than the word " Mis- 
cellaneous " printed upon the back. Far 
be it from me to claim any credit for the 
quite unexpected popularity which I am 
pleased to find these bucolic strains have 
attained unto. If I know myself, I am 
measurably free from the itch of vanity ; 
yet I may be allowed to say that I was 
not backward to recognize in them a cer- 
tain wild, puckery, acidulous (sometimes 
even verging toward that point which, in 
our rustic phrase, is termed shut-eye) 
flavor, not wholly unpleasing, nor un- 
wholesome, to palates cloyed with the 
sugariness of tamed and cultivated fruit. 
It may be, also, that some touches of my 
own, here and there, may have led to their 
wider accept^ace, albeit solely from my 
larger experience of literature and author- 
ship.* 

* The reader curious in such matters may 
refer (if he can find them) to "A sermon 
preached on the Anniversary of the Dark 
Day," "An Artillery Election Sermon," "A 



I was, at first, inclined to discourage Mr. 
Biglow 's attempts, as knowing that the 
desire to poetize is one of the diseases 
naturally incident to adolescence, which, 
if the fitting remedies be not at once and 
with a bold hand applied, may become 
chronic, and render one, who might else 
have become in due time an ornament of 
the social circle, a painful object even to 
nearest friends and relatives. But think- 
ing, on a further experience, that there 
was a germ of promise in him which re- 
quired only culture and the pulling up of 
weeds from around it, I thought it best to 
set before him the acknowledged examples 
of English composition in verse, and leave 
the rest to natural emulation . With this 
view, I accordingly lent him some volumes 
of Pope and Goldsmith, to the assiduous 
study of which he promised to devote his 
evenings. Not long afterward, he brought 
me some verses written upon that model, 
a specimen of which I subjoin, having 
changed some phrases of less elegancy, 
and a few rhymes objectionable to the cul- 
tivated ear. The poem consisted of child- 
ish reminiscences, and the sketches which 
follow will not seem destitute of truth to 
those whose fortunate education began in 
a country village. And, first, let us hang 
up his charcoal portrait of the school- 
dame. 

" Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see 
The humble school-house of my A, B, C, 
Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his 

tire, 
Waited in ranks the wished command to fire, 
Then all together, when the signal came, 
Discharged their a-b abs against the dame. 
Daughter of Danaus, who could daily pour 
In treacherous pipkins her Pierian store, 
She, mid the volleyed learning firm and calm, 
Patted the fuiioughed ferule on her palm, 
And, to our wonder, could divine at once 
Who flashed the pan, and who was downright 
dunce. 
" There young Devotion learned to climb with 
ease 
The gnarly limbs of Scripture family-trees, 
And he was most commended and admired 

Discourse on the Late Eclipse," "Dorcas, a 
Funeral Sermon on the Death of Madam Sub- 
mit Tidd, Relict of the late Experience Tidd. 
Esq.," &c., &c 



INTRODUCTION. 



163 



Who soonest to the topmost twig perspired ; 
Each name was called as many various ways 
As pleased the reader's ear on different days, 
So that the weather, or the ferule's stings, 
Colds in the head, or fifty other things, 
Transformed the helpless Hebrew thrice a 

week 
To guttural Pequot or resounding Greek, 
The vibrant accent skipping here and there, 
Just as it pleased invention or despair ; 
No controversial Hebraist was the Dame ; 
With or without the points pleased her the 

same ; 
If any tyro found a name too tough, 
And looked at her, pride furnished skill 

enough ; 
She nerved "her larynx for the desperate thing, 
And cleared the five -barred syllables at a 

spring. 

x * Ah, dear old times ! there once it was my 

hap, 
Perched on a stool, to wear the long-eared 

cap ; 
From books degraded, there I sat at ease, 
A drone, the envy of compulsory bees ; 
Rewards of merit, too, full many a time, 
Each with its woodcut and its moral rhyme, 
And pierced half-dollars hung on ribbons gay 
About my neck — to be restored next day, 
I carried home, rewards as shining then 
As those which deck the lifelong pains of men, 
More solid than the redeinanded praise 
With which the world beribbons later days. 

"Ah, dear old times ! how brightly ye return ! 
How, rubbed afresh, your phosphor traces 

burn ! 
The ramble schoolward through dewspark- 

ling meads 
The willow-wands turned Cinderella steeds 
The impromptu pinbent hook, the deep re- 
morse 
O'er the chance-captured minnow's inchlong 

corse ; 
The pockets, plethoric with marbles round, 
That still a space for ball and pegtop found, 
Nor satiate yet, could manage to confine 
Horsechestnuts, flagroot, and the kite's 

wound twine, 
And, like the prophet's carpet could take in, 
Enlarging still, the popgun's magazine ; 
The dinner carried in the small tin pail, 
Shared with some dog, whose most beseech- 
ing tail 
And dripping tongue and eager ears belied 
The assumed indifference of canine pride ; 
The caper homeward, shortened if the cart 
Of Neighbor Pomeroy, trundling from the 

mart, 
O'ertook me, — then, translated to the seat 
I praised the steed, how stanch he was and 

fleet, 
While the bluff farmer, with superior grin, 
Explained where horses should be thick, 

where thin, 
And warned me (joke he always had in store) 
To shun a beast that four white stockings 

wore. 
What a fine natural courtesy was his ! 
His nod w 7 as pleasure, and his full bow bliss ; 
How did his well-thumbed hat, with ardor 

rapt, 
Its curve decorous to each rank adapt ! 



How did it graduate with a courtly ease 
The whole long scale of social differences. 
Yet so gave each his measure running o'er, 
None thought his own was less, his neighbor's 

more ; 
The squire was flattered, and the pauper knew 
Old times acknowledged 'neath the thread- 
bare blue ! 
Dropped at the corner of the embowered lane, 
Whistling I wade the knee-deep leaves again, 
While eager Argus, w 7 ho has missed all day 
The sharer of his condescending play, 
Comes leaping onward with a bark elate 
And boisterous tail to greet me at the gate ; 
That I was true in absence to our love 
Let the thick dog's-ears in my primer prove." 

I add only one further extract, which 
will possess a melancholy interest to all 
such as have endeavored to glean the ma- 
terials of revolutionary history from the 
lips of aged persons, who took a part in 
the actual making of it, and, finding the 
manufacture profitable, continued the sup- 
ply in an adequate proportion to the de- 
mand. 

1 ' Old Joe is gone, who saw hot Percy goad 
His slow artillery up the Concord road, 
A tale which grew in wonder, year by year, 
As, every time he told it, Joe drew near 
To the main fight, till, faded and grown gray, 
The original scene to bolder tints gave way ; 
Then Joe had heard the foe's scared double- 
quick 
Beat on stove dram with one uncaptured 

stick, 
And, ere death came the lengthening tale to 

lop, 
Himself had fired, and seen a red-coat drop ; 
Had Joe lived long enough, that scrambling 

fight 
Had squared more nearly with his sense of 

right, 
And vanquished Percy, to complete the tale, 
Had hammered stone for life in Concord jail." 

I do not know that the foregoing ex- 
tracts ought not to be called my own 
rather than Mr. Biglow's, as, indeed, he 
maintained stoutly that my file had left 
nothing of his in them. I should not, 
perhaps, have felt entitled to take so great 
liberties with them, had I not more than 
suspected an hereditary vein of poetry in 
myself, a very near ancestor having writ- 
ten a Latin poem in the Harvard Gratula- 
tio on the accession of George the Third. 
Suffice it to say, that, whether not satis- 
fied with such limited approbation as I 
could conscientiously bestow, or from a 
sense of natural inaptitude, certain it is 
that my young friend could never be in- 
duced to any further essays in this kind. 
He affirmed that it was to him like writ- 
ing in a foreign tongue, — that Mr. Pope's 
versification was like the regular ticking 
of one of Willard's clocks, in which one 
could fancy, after long listening, a certain 



164 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



kind of rhythm or tune, but which yet 
was only a poverty-stricken tick, tick, af- 
ter all, — and that he had never seen a 
sweet-water on a trellis growing so fairly, 
or in forms so pleasing to his eye, as a fox- 
grape over a scrub-oak in a swamp. He 
added I know not what, to the effect that 
the sweet- water would only be the more 
disfigured by having its leaves starched 
and ironed out, and that Pegasus (so he 
called him) hardly looked right with his 
mane and tail in curl-papers. These and 
other such opinions I did not long strive 
to eradicate, attributing them rather to a 
defective education and senses untuned by 
too long familiarity with purely natural ob- 
jects, than to a perverted moral sense. I 
was the more inclined to this leniency since 
sufficient evidence was not to seek, that 
his verses, as wanting as they certainly 
were in classic polish and point, had some- 
how taken hold of the public ear in a sur- 
prising manner. So, only setting him right 
as to the quantity of the proper name Pega- 
sus, I left him to follow the bent of his nat- 
ural genius. 

Yet could I not surrender him wholly 
to the tutelage of the pagan (which, lit- 
erally interpreted, signifies village) muse 
without yet a further effort for his conver- 
sion, and to this end I resolved that what- 
ever of poetic fire yet burned in myself, 
aided by the assiduous bellows of correct 
models, should be put in requisition. Ac- 
cordingly, when my ingenious young par- 
ishioner brought to my study a copy of 
verses which he had written touching the 
acquisition of territory resulting from the 
Mexican war, and the folly of leaving the 
question of slavery or freedom to the ad- 
judication of chance, I did myself indite 
a short fable or apologue after the man- 
ner of Gay and Prior, to the end that he 
might see how easily even such subjects 
as he treated of were capable of a more 
refined style and more elegant expression. 
Mr. Biglow's production was as follows : — 

THE TWO GUNNERS. 



Two fellers, Isrel named and Joe, 
One Sundy mornin' 'greed to go 
Agunnin' soon'z the bells wuz done 
And meetin' finally begun, 
So'st no one would n't be about 
Ther Sabbath-breakin' to spy out. 

Joe did n't want to go a mite ; 

He felt ez though 't warnt skeercely right, 

But, when his doubts he went to speak on, 

Isrel he up and called him Deacon, 

An' kep' apokin' fun like sin 

An' then arubbin' on it in, 

Till Joe, less skeered o' doin' wrong 

Than bein' laughed at, went along. 



Past noontime they went trampin' round 

An' nary thing to pop at found, 

Till, fairly tired o' their spree, 

They leaned their guns agin a tree, 

An' jest ez they wuz settin' down 

To take their noonin', Joe looked roun' 

And see (acrost lots in a pond 

That warn't mor 'n twenty rod beyond), 

A goose that on the water sot 

Ez ef awaitin' to be shot. 

Isrel he ups and grabs his gun ; 

Sez he, " By ginger, here 's some fun ! " 

" Don't fire," sez Joe, " it aint no use, 

Thet 's Deacon Peleg's tame wil'-goose " : 

Seys Isrel, " I don't care a cent. 

I 've sighted an' I '11 let her went " ; 

Bang ! went queen's-arm, ole gander flopped 

His wings a spell, an' quorked, an' dropped. 

Sez Joe, " I would n't ha' been hired 
At that poor critter to ha' fired, 
But sence it 's clean gin up the ghost, 
We '11 hev the tallest kind o' roast ; 
I guess our waistbands '11 be tight 
'Fore it comes ten o'clock ternight." 

"I won't agree to no such bender," 
Sez Isrel ; " keep it tell it's tender ; 
'T aint wuth a snap afore it's ripe." 
Sez Joe, " I'd jest ez lives eat tripe ; 
You air a buster ter suppose 
I 'd eat what makes me hoi' my nose ! " 

So they disputed to. an' fro 
Till cunnin' Isrel sez to Joe, 
" Don't le's stay here an' play the fool, 
Le 's wait till both on us git cool, 
Jest for a day or two le's hide it 
An' then toss up an' so decide it." 
"Agreed ! " sez Joe, an' so they did, 
An' the ole goose wuz safely hid. 

Now 't wuz the hottest kind o' weather, 
An' when at last they come together, 
It did n't signify which won, 
Fer all the mischief hed been done : 
The goose wuz there, but, fer his soul, 
Joe would n't ha' tetched it with a pole ; 
But Isrel kind o' liked the smell on 't 
An' made his dinner very well on 't. 

My own humble attempt was in manner 
and form following, and I print it here, I 
sincerely trust, out of no vainglory, but 
solely with the hope of doing good. 

LEAVING THE MATTER OPEN. 

A TALE. 
BY HOMER WILBUR, A. M. 

Two brothers once, an ill-matched pair, 
Together dwelt (no matter where), 
To whom an Uncle Sam, or some one, 
Had left a house and farm in common. 
The two in principles and habits 
Were different as rats from rabbits ; 
Stout Farmer North, with frugal care, 
Laid up provision for his heir, 
Not scorning with hard sun-browned hands 
To scrape acquaintance with his lands ; 



INTBODUCTION. 



165 



Whatever thing he had to do 

He did, and made it pay him, too ; 

He sold his waste stone by the pound, 

His drains made water-wheels spin round, 

His ice in summer-time he sold, 

His wood brought profit when 't was cold, 

He dug and delved from morn till night, 

Strove to make profit square with right, 

Lived on his means, cut no great dash, 

And paid his debts in honest cash. 

On tother hand, his brother South 

Lived very much from hand to mouth, 

Played gentleman, nursed dainty hands, 

Borrowed North's money on his lands, 

And culled his morals and his graces 

From cock-pits, bar-rooms, fights, and races ; 

His sole work in the farming line 

Was keeping droves of long-legged swine, 

Which brought great bothers and expenses 

To North in'iooking after fences, 

And, when they happened to break through, 

Cost him both time and temper too, 

For South insisted it was plain 

He ought to drive them home again, 

And North consented to the work 

Because he loved to buy cheap pork. 

Meanwhile, South's swine increasing fast, 
His farm became too small at last ; 
So, having thought the matter over, 
And feeling bound to live in clover 
And never pay the clover's worth, 
He said one day to Brother North : — 

"Our families are both increasing, 
And, though we labor without ceasing, 
Our produce soon will be too scant 
To keep our children out of want ; 
They who wish fortune to be lasting 
Must be both prudent and forecasting ; 
We soon shall need more land ; a lot 
I know, that cheaply can be bo't ; 
You lend the cash, I '11 buy the acres, 
And we 11 be equally partakers. " 

Poor North, whose Anglo-Saxon blood 
Gave him a hankering after mud, 
Wavered a moment, then consented, 
And, when the cash w r as paid, repented ; 
To make the new land worth a pin, 
Thought he, it must be all fenced in, 
For, if South's pwine once get the run on 't 
No kind of farming can be done ou 't ; 
If that don't suit the other side, 
'T is best we instantly divide. 

But somehow South could ne'er incline 
This way or that to run the line, 
And always found some new pretence 
'Gainst setting the division fence ; 
At last he said : — 

" For peace's sake, 
Liberal concessions I will make ; 
Though I believe, upon my soul. 
I 've a just title to the whole, 
I '11 make an offer which I call 
Gen'rous, — we 11 have no fence at all ; 
Then both of us, whene'er we choose, 
Can take what part we want to use ; 
If you should chance to need it first, 
Pick you the best, 1 11 take the worst." 



" Agreed ! " cried North ; thought he, This fall 
With wheat and rye 1 11 sow it all ; 
In that way I .shall get the start, 
And South may whistle for his part. 
So thought, so done, the field was sown, 
And, winter having come and gone., 
Sly North walked blithely forth to spy, 
The progress of his wheat and rye ; 
Heavens, what a sight ! his brother's swine 
Had asked themselves all out to dine ; 
Such grunting, munching, rooting, shoving, 
The soil seemed all alive and moving, 
As for his grain, such work they 'd made on 't, 
He could n't spy a single blade on 't. 

Off in a rage he rushed to South, 

"My wheat and rye" — grief choked his 

mouth ; 
" Pray don't mind me," said South, " but plant 
All of the new land that you want " ; 
" Yes, but your hogs," cried North ; 

"The grain 
Won't hurt them," answered South again ; 
" But they destroy my crop " ; 

"No doubt ; 
'T is fortunate you 've found it out ; 
Misfortunes teach, and only they, 
You must not sow it in their way " ; 
"Nay, you," says North, "must keep them 

out " ; 
" Did I create them with a snout ? " 
Asked South demurely ; " as agreed, 
The land is open to your seed, 
And would you fain prevent my pigs 
From running there their harmless rigs? 
God knows I view this compromise 
With not the most approving eyes ; 
I gave up my unquestioned rights 
For sake of quiet days and nights ; 
I offered then, you know 't is true, 
To cut the piece of land in two." 
" Then cut it now," growls North ; 

" Abate 
Your heat," says South, " 't is now too late ; 
I offered you the rocky corner, 
But you, of your own good the scorner, 
Refused to take it ; I am sorry ; 
No doubt you might have found a quarry, 
Perhaps a gold-mine, for aught I know, * 
Containing heaps of native rhino ; 
You can't expect me to resign 
My rights " — 

" But where," quoth North, "are mine?" 
Ymlr rights, " says tother, " well, that \s funny, 
I bought the land " — 

" I paid the money " ; 
" That," answered South, " is from the point, 
The ownership, you 11 grant, is joint ; 
I 'm sure my only hojie and trust is 
Not law so much as abstract justice, 
Though, you remember, 'twas agreed 
That so and so — consult the deed ; 
Objections now are out of date, 
They might have answered once, but Fate 
Quashes them at the point we 've got to ; 
Obsta principiis, that's my motto." 
So saying, South began to whistle 
And looked as obstinate as gristle, 
Wliile North went homeward, each brown paw 
Clenched like a knot of natural law, 
And all the while, in either ear, 
Heard something clicking wondrous clear. 



166 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



To turn now to other matters, there are 
two things upon which it would seem fitting 
to dilate somewhat more largely in this 
place, — the Yankee character ancl the Yan- 
kee dialect. And, first, of the Yankee char- 
acter, which has wanted neither open ma- 
ligners, nor even more dangerous enemies 
in the persons of those unskilful painters 
who have given to it that hardness, angu- 
larity, and want of proper perspective, 
which, in truth, belonged, not to their 
subject, but to their own niggard and un- 
skilful pencil. 

New England was not so much the col- 
ony of a mother country, as a Hagar driven 
forth into the wilderness. The little self- 
exiled band which came hither in 1620 
came, not to seek gold, but to found a 
democracy. They came that they might 
have the privilege to work and pray, to sit 
upon hard benches and listen to painful 
preachers as long as they would, yea, even 
unto thirty-seventfcly, if the spirit so 
willed it. And surely, if the Greek might 
boast his Thermopylae, where three hun- 
dred men fell in resisting the Persian, we 
may well be proud of our Plymouth Rock, 
where a handful of men, women, and chil- 
dren not merely faced, but vanquished, 
winter, famine, the wilderness, and the yet 
more invincible storge that drew them back 
to the green island far away. These found 
no lotus growing upon the surly shore, the 
taste of which could make them forget 
their little native Ithaca ; nor were they so 
wanting to themselves in faith as to burn 
their ship, but could seethe fair west- wind 
belly the homeward sail, and then turn 
unrepining to grapple with the terrible 
Unknown. 

As Want was the prime foe these hardy 
exodists had to fortress themselves against, 
so it is little wonder if that traditional 
feud is long in wearing out of the stock. 
The wounds of the old warfare were long 
a-healing, and an east-wind of hard times 
puts a new ache in every one of them. 
Thrift was the first lesson in their horn- 
book, pointed out, letter after letter, by the 
lean finger of the hard schoolmaster, Ne- 
cessity. Neither were those plump, rosy- 
gilled Englishmen that came hither, but a 
hard-faced, atrabilious, earnest-eyed race, 
stiff from long wrestling with the Lord in 
prayer, and who had taught Satan to 
dread the new Puritan hug. Add two 
hundred years' influence of soil, climate, 
and exposure, with its necessary result of 
idiosyncrasies, and we have the present 
Yankee, full of expedients, half -master of 
all trades, inventive in all but the beauti- 
ful, full of shifts, not yet capable of com- 
fort, armed at all points against the old 



enemy Hunger, longanimous, good at 
patching, not so careful for what is best 
as for what will do, with a clasp to his 
purse and a button to his pocket, not 
skilled to build against Time, as in old 
countries, but against sore-pressing Need, 
accustomed to move the world with no 
nov a-Tu) but his own two feet, and no lever 
but his own long forecast. A strange 
hybrid, indeed, did circumstance beget, 
here in the New World, upon the old 
Puritan stock, and the earth never before 
saw such mystic-practicalism, such nig- 
gard-geniality, such calculating-fanaticism, 
such cast-iron-enthusiasm, such sour-faced- 
humor, such close-fisted-generosity. This 
new Grceculus esuriens will make a living 
out of anything. He will invent new 
trades as well as tools. His brain is his 
capital, and he will get education at all 
risks. Put him on Juan Fernandez, and 
he would make a spelling-book first, and a 
salt-pan afterward. In coelum, jusseris. 
ibit, — or the other way either, — it is all 
one, so anything is to be got by it. Yet, 
after all, thin, speculative Jonathan is 
more like the Englishman of two centuries 
ago than John Bull himself is. He has 
lost somewhat in solidity, has become flu- 
ent and adaptable, but more of the origi- 
nal groundwork of character remains. He 
feels more at home with Fulke Greville, 
Herbert of Cherbury, Quarles, George Her- 
bert, and Browne, than with his modern 
English cousins. He is nearer than John, 
by at least a hundred years, to Naseby, 
Marston Moor, Worcester, and the time 
when, if ever, there were true Englishmen. 
John Bull has suffered the idea of the 
Invisible to be very much fattened out of 
him. Jonathan is conscious still that he 
lives in the w 7 orld of the Unseen as well as 
of the Seen. To move John you must 
make your fulcrum of solid beef and pud- 
ding ; an abstract idea will do for Jona- 
than. 



%* TO THE INDULGENT READER. 

My friend, the Rev. Mr. Wilbur, having been 
seized with a dangerous fit of illness, before 
this Introduction had passed through the press, 
and being incapacitated for all literary exer- 
tion, sent to me his notes, memoranda, &c, 
and requested me to fashion them into some 
shape more fitting for the general eye. This, 
owing to the fragmentary and disjointed state 
of his manuscripts, I have felt wholly unable to 
do ; yet, being unwilling that the reader should 
be deprived of such parts of his lucubrations as 
seemed more finished, and not well discerning 
how to segregate these from the rest, I have 
concluded to send them all to the press pre- 
cisely as they are. Columbus Nye, 

Pastor of a Church in Bung town Corner. 



INTRODUCTION. 



167 



It remains to speak of the Yankee dia- 
lect. And, first, it may be premised, in a 
general way, that any one much read in 
the writings of the early colonists need 
not be told that the far greater share of 
the words and phrases now esteemed pe- 
culiar to New England, and local there, 
were brought from the mother country. 
A person familiar with the dialect of cer- 
tain portions of Massachusetts will not 
fail to recognize, in ordinary discourse, 
many words now noted in English vocabu- 
laries as archaic, the greater part of which 
were in common use about the time of 
the King James translation of the Bible. 
Shakespeare stands less in need of a glos- 
sary to most New-Englanders than to 
many a native of the Old Country. The 
peculiarities of our speech, however, are 
rapidly wearing out. As there is no 
country where reading is so universal and 
newspapers are so multitudinous, so no 
phrase remains long local, but is trans- 
planted in the mail-bags to every remotest 
corner of the land. Consequently our 
dialect approaches nearer to uniformity 
than that of any other nation. 

The English have complained of us for 
coining new words. Many of those so 
stigmatized were old ones by them forgot- 
ten, and all make now an unquestioned 
part of the currency, wherever English is 
spoken. Undoubtedly, we have a right to 
make new words, as they are needed by 
the fresh aspects under which life presents 
itself here in the New World; and, indeed, 
wherever a language is alive, it grows. It 
might be questioned whether we could not 
establish a stronger title to the ownership 
of the English tongue than the mother- 
islanders themselves. Here, past all ques- 
tion, is to be its great home and centre. 
And not only is it already spoken here by 
greater numbers, but with a far higher 
popular average of correctness than in 
Britain. The great writers of it, too, we 
might claim as ours, were ownership to be 
settled by the number of readers and lovers. 

As regards the provincialisms to be met 
with in this volume, I may say that the 
reader will not find one which is not (as I 
believe) either native or imported with the 
early settlers, nor one which I have not, 
with my own ears, heard in familiar use. 
In the metrical portion of the book, I 
have endeavored to adapt the spelling as 
nearly as possible to the ordinary mode of 
pronunciation. Let the reader who deems 
me over-particular remember this caution 
of Martial : — 

" Quern recitas, mens est, Fidentine, libellus ; 
Sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus." 



A few further explanatory remarks will 
not be impertinent. 

I shall barely lay down a few general 
rules for the reader's guidance. 

1. The genuine Yankee never gives the 
rough sound to the r when he can help it, 
and often displays considerable ingenuity 
in avoiding it even before a vowel. 

2. He seldom sounds the final g, a piece 
of self-denial, if we consider his partiality 
for nasals. The same of the final d, as 
hari' and stem' for hand said stand. 

3. The h in such words as while, when, 
where, he omits altogether. 

4. In regard to a, he shows some incon- 
sistency, sometimes giving' a close and 
obscure sound, as hev for have, hendy for 
handy, ez for as, thet for that, and again 
giving it the broad sound it has in father, 
as hansome for handsome. 

5. To the sound ou he prefixes an e 
(hard to exemplify otherwise than orally). 

The following passage in Shakespeare 
he would recite thus : — 

"Neow is the winta uv eour discontent 
Med glorious summa by this sun o' Yock, 
An' all the cleouds thet leowered upun eour 

heouse 
In the deep buzzum o' the oshin buried ; 
Neow air eour breows beound 'ith victorious 

wreaths ; 
Eour breased arms hung up fer monimunce ; 
Eour starn alarums changed to merry meetins, 
Eour dreffle marches to delighfle masures. 
Grim-visagedwar lieth smeuthed his wrinkled 

front, 
An' neow, instid o' mountin' barebid steeds 
To fright the souls o' ferfle edverseries, 
He capers nimly in a lady's chamber, 
To the lascivious pleasin' uv a loot." 

6. Au, in such words as daughter and 
slaughter, he pronounces ah. 

7. To the dish thus seasoned add a drawl 
ad libitum. 

[Mr. Wilbur's notes here become entirely 
fragmentary. — C. N.] 

a. Unable to procure a likeness of Mr. 
Biglow, I thought the curious reader might 
be gratified with a sight of the editorial 
effigies. And here a choice between two 
was offered, — the one a profile (entirely 
black) cut by Doyle, the other a portrait 
painted by a native artist of much promise. 
The first of these seemed wanting in ex- 
pression, and in the second a slight obliq- 
uity of the visual organs has been height- 
ened (perhaps from an over-desire of force 
on the part of the artist) into too close an 
approach to actual strabismus. This slight 
divergence in my optical apparatus from 
the ordinary model — however I may have 



168 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



been taught to regard it in the light of a 
mercy rather than a cross, since it enabled 
me to give as much of directness and per- 
sonal application to my discourses as met 
the wants of my congregation, without 
risk of offending any by being supposed to 
have him or her in my eye (as the saying 
is) — seemed yet to Mrs. Wilbur a sufficient 
objection to the engraving of the aforesaid 
painting. We read of many who either 
absolutely refused to allow the copying of 
their features, as especially did Plotinus 
and Agesilaus among the ancients, not to 
mention the more modern instances of 
Scioppius, Palteottus, Pinellus, Velserus, 
Gataker, and others, or were indifferent 
thereto, as Cromwell. 

j3. Yet was Caesar desirous of concealing 
his baldness. Per contra, my Lord Pro- 
tector's carefulness in the matter of his 
wart might be cited. Men generally more 
desirous of being improved in their por- 
traits than characters. Shall probably 
find very unflattered likenesses of ourselves 
in Recording Angel's gallery. 

y. Whether any of our national peculiar- 
ities may be traced to our use of stoves, as 
a certain closeness of the lips in pronuncia- 
tion, and a smothered smoulderingness of 
disposition seldom roused to open flame ? 
An unrestrained intercourse with fire prob- 
ably conducive to generosity and hospi- 
tality of soul. Ancient Mexicans used 
stoves, as the friar Augustin Pvuiz reports, 
Hakluyt, III. 468, — but Popish priests 
not always reliable authority. 

To-day picked my Isabella grapes. Crop 
injured by attacks of rose-bug in the 
spring. Whether Noah was justifiable in 
preserving this class of insects ? 

8. Concerning Mr. Biglow's pedigree. 
Tolerably certain that there was never a 
poet among his ancestors. An ordination 
hymn attributed to a maternal uncle, but 
perhaps a sort of production not demand- 
ing the creative faculty. 

His grandfather a painter of the gran- 
diose or Michael Angelo school. Seldom 
painted objects smaller than houses or 
barns, and these with uncommon ex- 
pression. 

e. Of the Wilburs no complete pedigree. 
The crest said to be a tvild boar, whence, 
perhaps, the name. (?) A connection with 
the Earls of Wilbraham (quasi wild boar 
ham) might be made out. This suggestion 
worth following up. Tn 1677, John W. m. 

Expect , had issue, 1. John, 2. Hag- 

gai, 3. Expect, 4. Ruhamah, 5. Desire. 



" Hear lyes ye bodye of Mrs Expect Wilber, 
Ye crewell salvages they kil'd her 
Together wth other Christian soles eleaven, 
October ye ix clave, 1707. 
Ye stream of Jordan sh' as crost ore 
And now expeacts me on ye other shore : 
I live in hope her soon to join ; 
Her earthlye yeeres were forty and nine. " 
From Gravestone in Pekussett, North Parish. 

This is unquestionably the same John 
who afterward (1711) married Tabitha 
Hagg or Ragg. 

But if this w r ere the case, she seems to 
have died early ; for only three years after, 
namely, 1714, we have " evidence that he 
married Winifred, daughter of Lieutenant 
Tipping. 

He seems to have been a man of sub- 
stance, for we find him in 1696 conveying 
" one undivided eightieth part of a salt- 
meadow " in Yabbok, and he commanded 
a sloop in 1702. 

Those who doubt the importance of gen- 
ealogical studies fuste jpotius quam argu- 
mento erudiendi. 

I trace him as far as 1723, and there lose 
him. In that year he was chosen selectman. 

No gravestone. Perhaps overthrown 
when new hearse-house was built, 1802. 

He was probably the son of John, who 
came from Bill i am fcomit. Salop, circa 1642. 

This first John was a man of consider- 
able importance, being twice mentioned 
with the honorable prefix of Mr. in the 
town records. Name spelt with two l-s. 

" Hear lyeth ye bod [stone unhappily broken.] 
Mr. Ihon Willber [Esq.] [7 inclose this in 
brackets as doubtful. To me it seems clear. ] 

Ob't die [Illegible; looks like xviii.] 

iii [prob. 1693.] 

paynt 
. deseased seinte : 
A friend and [fath]er untoe all ye opreast, 
Hee gave ye wicked familists noe reast, 
When Sat [an bljewe his Antinomian blaste, 
Wee clong to [Willber as a steadfjast maste. 
[A] gaynst ye horrid Qua[kers] " 

It is greatly to be lamented that this 
curious epitaph }§ mutilated. It is said 
that the sacrilegious British soldiers made 
a target of this stone during the ^ war of 
Independence. How odious an animosity 
which pauses not at the grave ! How 
brutal that which spares not the monu- 
ments of authentic history ! This is not 
improbably from the pen of Rev. Moody 
Pyram, who is mentioned by Hubbard as 
having been noted for a silver vein of 
poetry. If his papers be still extant, a 
copy might possibly be recovered. 



THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 



No. I. 
A LETTER 

FROM MR. EZEKIEL BIGLOW OF JAALAM TO 
THE HON. JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM, ED- 
ITOR OF THE BOSTON COURIER, INCLOS- 
ING A POEM OF HIS SON, MR. HOSEA 
BIGLOW. 

Jaylem, jane 1846. 
Mister Eddyter : — Our Hosea wuz 
down to Boston last week, and he see a 
cruetin Sarjunt a strutt in round as popler 
as a hen with 1 chicking, with 2 fellers a 
drummin and fifin arter him like all nater. 
the sarjunt he thout Hosea hed n't gut his 
i teetli cut cos he looked a kindo 's though 
he 'd jest com down, so he cal'lated to 
hook him in, but Hosy wood n't take none 
o' his sarse for all he hed much as 20 
Rooster's tales stuck onto his hat and 
eenamost enuf brass a bobbin up and down 
on his shoulders and figureed onto Ins coat 
and trousis, let alone wut nater hed sot 
in his featers, to make a 6 pounder out on. 
wal, Hosea he com home considerabal 
riled, and arter I 'd gone to bed T heern 
Him a thrashin round like a short-tailed 
Bull in fli-time. The old Woman ses she 
to me ses she, Zekle, ses she, our Hosee 's 
gut the chollery or suthin anuther ses she, 
don't you Bee skeered, ses I, he 's oney 
amakin pottery * ses i, he 's oilers on 
hand at that ere busynes like Da & mar- 
tin, and shure enuf, cum mornin, Hosy he 
cum down stares full chizzle, hare on eend 
and cote tales flyin, and sot rite of to go 
reed his varses to Parson Wilbur bein he 
haint aney grate shows o' book larnin him- 
self, bimeby he cum back and sed the 
parson wuz dreffle tickled with 'em as i 
hoop you will Be, and said they wuz True 
grit. 

m Hosea ses taint hardly fair to call ' em 

hisn now, cos the parson kind o' slicked 

Off sum o' the last varses, but he told 

* Ant insanity ant versos facit. — H. W. 



Hosee he did n't want to put his ore in to 
tetch to the Rest on 'em, bein they wuz 
verry well As thay wuz, and then Hosy 
ses he sed suthin a nuther about Simplex 
Mundishes or sum sech feller, but I guess 
Hosea kind o' did n't hear him, for I never 
hearn o' nobody o' that name in this vil- 
ladge, and I 've lived here man and boy 76 
year cum next later diggin, and thair aint 
no wheres a kitting spryer 'n I be. 

If you print 'em I wish you 'd jest let 
folks know who hosy's father is, cos my 
ant Keziah used to say it 's nater to be 
curus ses she, she aint livin though and 
he 's a likely kind o' lad. 

EZEKIEL BIGLOW. 



Thrash away, you '11 hev to rattle 

On them kittle-drums o' yourn, — 
'Taint a knowin' kind o' cattle 

Thet is ketched with mouldy corn ; 
Put in stiff, you fifer feller, 

Let folks see how spry you be, — 
Guess 3 t ou '11 toot till you are yeller 

'Fore you git ahold o' me ! 

Thet air flag 's a leetle rotten, 

Hope it aint your Sunday's best ; — 
Fact ! it takes a sight o' cotton 

To stuff out a soger's chest : 
Sence we farmers hev to pay fer % 

Ef 3 7 ou must wear humps like these, 
Sposin' you should try salt hay fer 't, 

It would du ez slick ez grease. 

'T would n't suit them Southun fellers, 
They 're a dreffle graspin' set, 

We must oilers blow the bellers 
Wen they want their irons het ; 

May be it 's all right ez preachin', 
But my narves it kind o' grates, 

Wen I see the overreachin' 



170 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Them thet rule us, them slave-traders, 

Haint they cut a thunderin' swarth 
(Helped by Yankee renegaders), 

Thru the vartu o' the North ! 
We begin to think it 's nater 

To take sarse an' not be riled ; — 
Who 'd expect to see a tater 

All on eend at bein' biled ? 

Ez fer war, I call it murder, — 

There you hev it plain an' flat ; 
I don't want to go no furder 

Than my Testy men t fer that ; 
God hez sed so plump an' fairly, 

It 's ez long ez it is broad, 
An' you 've gut to git up airly 

Ef you want to take in God. 

'Taint your eppyletts an' feathers 

Make the thing a grain more right ; 
'Taint afollerin' your bell-wethers 

Will excuse ye in His sight ; 
Ef you take a sword an' dror it, 

An' go stick a feller thru, 
Guv'ment aint to answer for it, 

God '11 send the bill to you. 

Wut 's the use o' meetin'-goin' 

Every Sabbath, wet or dry, 
Ef it 's right to go am o win' 

Feller-men like oats an' rye ? 
I dunno but wut it 's pooty 

Trainin' round in bobtail coats, — 
But it 's cur us Christian dooty 

This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats. 

They may talk o' Freedom's airy 

Tell they 're pupple in the face, — 
It 's a grand gret cemetary 

Fer the barthrights of our race ; 
They jest want this paliforny 

So 's to lug new slave-states in 
To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye, 

An' to plunder ye like sin. 

Aint it cute to see a Yankee 

Take sech everlastin' pains, 
All to git the Devil's thankee 

Helpin' on 'em weld their chains ? 
Wy, it 's jest ez clear ez Aggers, 

Clear ez one an' one make two, 
Chaps thet make black slaves o' niggers 

Want to make wite slaves o' you. 

Tell ye jest the eend I 've come to 
Arter cipherin' plaguy smart, 

An' it makes a handy sum, tu, 
Any gump could lam by heart ; 



Laborin' man an' laborin' woman 
Hev one glory an' one shame. 

Ev'y thin' thet 's done inhuman 
Injers all on 'em the same. 

'Taint by turnin' out to hack folks 

You 're agoin' to git your right, 
Nor by lookin' down on black folks 

Coz you 're put upon by wite ; 
Slavery aint o' nary color, 

'Taint the hide thet makes it wus, 
All it keers fer in a feller 

'S jest to make him fill its pus. 

Want to tackle me in, du ye ? 

I expect you '11 hev to wait ; 
Wen cold lead puts daylight thru ye 

You '11 begin to kal'late ; 
S'pose the crows wun't fall to pickin' 

All the carkiss from your bones, 
Coz you helped to give a lickin' 

To them poor half-Spanish drones? 

Jest go home an' ask our Nancy 

Wether I 'd be sech a goose 
Ez to jine ye, — guess you 'd fancy 

The etarnal bung wuz loose ! 
She wants me fer home consumption, 

Let alone the hay 's to mow, — 
Ef you 're arter folks o' gumption, 

You 've a darned long row to hoe. 

Take them editors thet 's crowin' 

Like a cockerel three months old, — 
Don't ketch any on 'em goin', 

Though they be so blasted bold ; 
Aint they a prime lot o' fellers? 

'Fore they think on 't they will sprout 
(Like a peach thet 's got the yellers), 

With the meanness bustin' out. 

Wal, go 'long to help 'em stealin' 

Bigger pens to cram with slaves, 
Help the men thet 's oilers dealin' 

Insults on your fathers' graves ; 
Help the strong to grind the feeble, 

Help the many agin the few, 
Help the men thet call your people 

Witewashed slaves an' peddlin' crew ! 

Massachusetts, God forgive her, 

She 's akneelin' with the rest, 
She, thet ough' to ha' clung ferever 

In her grand old eagle-nest ; 
She thet ough' to stand so fearless 

Wile the wracks are round her hurled, 
Hoi din' up a beacon peerless 

To the oppressed of all the world ! 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



171 



Haint they sold your colored seamen ? 

Haint they made your env'ys wiz ? 
Wut '11 make ye act like freemen ? 

Wut '11 git your dander riz ? 
Come, I '11 tell ye wut I 'm thinkin' 

Is our dooty in this fix, 
They 'd ha' done 't ez quick ez winkin' 

In the days o' seventy-six. 

Clang the bells in every steeple, 

Call all true men to disown 
The tradoocers of our people, 

The enslavers o' their own ; 
Let our dear old Bay State proudly 

Put the trumpet to her mouth, 
Let her ring this messidge loudly 

In the ears of all the South : — 

"I '11 return ye good fer evil 

Much ez we frail mortils can, 
But I wun't go help the Devil 

Makin' man the cus o' man ; 
Call me coward, call me traiter, 

Jest ez suits your mean idees, — 
Here I stand a tyrant-hater, 

An' the friend o' God an' Peace ! " 

Ef I 'd my way I hed ruther 

We should go to work an' part, — 
They take one way, we take t' other, — 

Guess it would n't break my heart ; 
Man hed ough' to put asunder 

Them thet God has noways jined; 
An' I should n't gretly wonder 

Ef there 's thousands o J my mind. 

[The first recruiting sergeant on record I 
conceive to have been that individual who is 
mentioned in the Book of Job as going to and 
fro in the earth, and walking up and down in 
it. Bishop Latimer will have him to have 
been a bishop, but to me that other calling 
would appear more congenial. The sect of 
Cainites is not yet extinct, who esteemed the 
first-born of Adam to be the most worthy, not 
only because of that privilege of primogeniture, 
but inasmuch as he was able to overcome and 
slay his younger brother. That was a wise 
saying of the famous Marquis Pescara to the 
Papal Legate, that it was impossible for men to 
serve Mars and Christ at the same time. Yet in 
time past the profession of arms was judged 
to be tear e^oxw that of a gentleman, nor does 
this opinion want for strenuous upholders even 
in our day. Must we suppose, then, that the 
profession of Christianity was only intended 
for losels, or, at best, to afford an opening for 
plebeian ambition? Or shall we hold with that 
nicely metaphysical Pomeranian, Captain Vratz, 
who was Count Konigsmark's chief instrument 
in the murder of Mr. Thynne, that the Scheme 
of Salvation has been arranged with an espe- 
cial eye to the necessities of the upper classes, 
and that " God would consider a gentleman and 



deal with him suitably to the condition and 
profession he had placed him in"? It may be 
said of us all, Exemplo plus quam ratione vivU 
mus. — H. W.] 



No. II. 
A LETTER 

FROM MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE HON. 
J. T. BUCKINGHAM, EDITOR OF THE BOS- 
TON COURIER, COVERING A LETTER FROM 
MR. B. SAWIN, PRIVATE IN THE MASSA- 
CHUSETTS REGIMENT. 



[This letter of Mr. Sa win's was not originally 
written in verse. Mr. Biglow, thinking it pe- 
culiarly susceptible of metrical ' adornment, 
translated it, so to speak, into his own vernac- 
ular tongue. This is not the time to consider 
the question, whether rhyme be a mode of ex- 
pression natural to the human race. If leisure 
from other and more important avocations be 
granted, I will handle the matter more at large 
in an appendix to the present volume. In this 
place I will barely remark, that I have some- 
times noticed in the unlanguaged prattlings of 
infants a fondness for alliteration, assonance, 
and even rhyme, in which natural predisposi- 
tion we may trace the three degrees through 
which our Angle-Saxon verse rose to its culmi- 
nation in the poetry of Pope. I would not be 
understood as questioning in these remarks 
that pious theory which supposes that children, 
if left entirely to themselves, would naturally 
discourse in Hebrew. For this the authority 
of one experiment is claimed, and I could, with 
Sir Thomas Browne, desire its establishment, 
inasmuch as the acquirement of that sacred 
tongue would thereby be facilitated. I am 
aware that Herodotus states the conclusion of 
Psammeticus to have been in favor of a dialect 
of the Phrygian. But, beside the chance that 
a trial of this importance would hardly be 
blessed to a Pagan monarch whose only motive 
was curiosity, we have on the Hebrew side the 
comparatively recent investigation of James 
the Fourth of Scotland. I will add to this 
prefatory remark, that Mr. Sawin, though a 
native of Jaalam, has never been a stated at- 
tendant on the religious exercises of my con- 
gregation. I consider my humble efforts pros- 
pered in that not one of my sheep hath ever 
indued the wolfs clothing of war, save for the 
comparatively innocent diversion of a militia 
training. Not that my flock are backward to 
undergo the hardships of defensive warfare. 
They serve cheerfully in the great army which 
fights even unto death pro aris et focis, accoutred 
with the spade, the axe, the plane, the sledge, 
the spelling-book, and other such effectual 
weapons against want and ignorance and un- 
thrii't. I have taught them (under God) to es- 
teem our human institutions as but tents of a 
night, to be stricken whenever Truth puts the 
bugle to her lips and sounds a march to the 
heights of wider-viewed intelligence and more 
perfect oiganization. — H. W.] 



172 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Mister Buckinum, the follerin Billet 
was writ hum by a Yung feller of our town 
that wuz cussed fool enuff to goe atrottin 
inter Miss Chiff arter a Drum and fife, it 
ain't Nater for a feller to let on that he 's 
sick o' any bizness that He went intu off 
his own free will and a Cord, but I rather 
cal'late he 's middlin tired o' voluntearin 
By this Time. I bleeve u may put depen- 
dunts on his statemence. For I never 
heered nothin bad on him let Alone his 
havin what Parson Wilbur cals a pong 
sliong for cocktales, and he ses it wuz a 
soshiashun of idees sot him agoin arter the 
Crootin Sargient cos he wore a cocktale 
onto his hat. 

his Folks gin the letter to me and i shew 
it to parson Wilbur and he ses it oughter 
Bee printed, send It to mister Buckinum, 
ses he, i don't oilers agree with him, ses 
he, but by Time,* ses he, I du like a feller 
that aint a Feared. 

I have intusspussed a Few refleckshuns 
hear and thair. We 're kind o' prest with 
Hay in. 

Ewers respecfly 

HOSEA BIGLOW. 

This kind o' sogerin' aint a mite like 
our October training 

A chap could clear right out from there 
ef 't only looked like rainin', 

An' th' Cunnles, tu, could kiver up 
their shappoes with bandanners, 

An' send the insines skootin' to the bar- 
room with their banners 

(Fear o' gittin' on 'em spotted), an' a fel- 
ler could cry quarter 

Ef he fired away his ramrod arter tu 
much rum an' water. 

Recollect wut fun we hed, you'n' I an' 
Ezry Hollis, 

Up there to Waltham plain last fall, 
along o' the Cornwallis ? t 

This sort o' thing aint jest like thet, — 
I wish thet I wuz furder, — % 

Nimepunce a day fer killin' folks comes 
kind o' low fer murder, 

* In relation to this expression, I cannot but 
think that Mr. Biglow lias been too hasty in 
attributing it to me. Though Time be a com- 
paratively innocent personage to swear by, and 
though Longinus in his discourse nept"Yi//ou? 
have commended timely oaths as not only a use- 
ful but sublime figure of speech, yet I have al- 
ways kept my lips free from that abomination. 
Orli profamtm vulgus, I hate your swearing and 
hectoring fellows. — H. W. 

t i halt the Site of a feller with a muskit as I 
ilu pizn But their is fun to a cornwallis I aint 
agoin' to deny it. — H. B. 

X lie means Not quite so fur I guess. — H. B, 



(Wy I 've worked out to slarterin' some 
fer Deacon Cephas Billins, 

An' in the hardest times there wuz I 
oilers fetched ten shillins,) 

There 's sutthin' gits into my throat thet 
makes it hard to swaller, 

It comes so nateral to think about a 
hempen collar ; 

It 's glory, — but, in spite o' all my try- 
in' to git callous, 

I feel a kind o' in a cart, aridin' to the 
gallus. 

But wen it comes to bciri killed, — I tell 
ye I felt streaked 

The fust time 't ever I found out wy 
baggonets wuz peaked ; 

Here 's how it wuz : I started out to go 
to a fandango, 

The sentinul he ups an' sez, "Thet's 
furder 'an you can go." 

"None o' your sarse," sez I ; sez he, 
" Stan' back ! " "Aint you a bus- 
ter?" 

Sez I, " I 'm up to all thet air, I guess 
I 've ben to muster ; 

I know wy sentinuls air sot ; you aint 
agoin' to eat us ; 

Caleb haint no monopoly to court the 
seenoreetas ; 

My folks to hum air full ez good ez hisn 
be, by golly ! " 

An' so ez I wuz goin' by, not thinkin' 
wut would folly, 

The everlastin' cus he stuck his one- 
pronged pitchfork in me 

An' made a hole right thru my close ez 
ef I wuz an in' my. 

Wal, it beats all how big I felt hooraw- 

in' in ole Funnel 
Wen Mister Bolles he gin the sword to 

our Leftenant Cunnle, 
(It 's Mister* Secondary Bolles,* thet 

writ the prize peace essay ; 
Thet 's why he did n't list himself along 

o' us, I dessay,) 
An' Rantoul, tu, talked pooty loud, but 

don't put his foot in it, 
Coz human life 's so sacred thet he 's 

principled agin it, — 
Though I myself can't rightly see it 's 

any was achokin' on 'em, 
Than puttin' bullets thru their lights, or 

with a bagnet pokin' on 'em; 

* the ignerant creeter means Sekketary ; but 
he oilers stuck to his books like cobbler's wax 
to an ile-stone. — H. B. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



173 



How dreffle slick he reeled it off (like 

Blitz at our lyceum 
Ahaulin ribbins from his chops so quick 

you skeercely see 'em), 
About the Anglo-Saxon race (an' saxons 

would be handy 
To du the buryin' down here upon the 

Bio Grandy), 
About our patriotic pas an' our star- 
spangled banner, 
Our country's bird alookin' on an' sing- 
in' out hosanner, 
An' how he (Mister B. himself) wuz 

happy fer Ameriky, — 
I felt, ez sister Patience sez, a leetle mite 

histericky. 
I felt, I swon, ez though it wuz a dreffle 

kind o' privilege 
Atrampin' round thru Boston streets 

among the gutter's drivelage; 
I act'lly thought it wuz a treat to hear 

a little drummin', 
An' it did bonyfidy seem millanyum wuz 

acomin' 
Wen all on us got suits (darned like 

them wore in the state prison) 
An' every feller felt ez though all Mexico 

wuz hisn.* 

This 'ere 's about the meanest place a 
skunk could wal diskiver 

(Saltillo's Mexican, I b'lieve, fer wut we 
call Salt-river); 

The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos 
beat all nater, 

I 'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one 
good blue-nose tater ; 

The country here thet Mister Bolles de- 
clared to be so charmin' 

Throughout is swarmin' with the most 
alarmin' kind o' varmin'. 

He talked about delishis froots, but then 

it wuz a wopper all, 
The holl on 't 's mud an' prickly pears, 

with here an' there a chapparal ; 
You see a feller peekin' out, an', fust you 

know, a lariat 



* it must be aloud that thare 's a streak of 
nater in lovin' sho, but it sartinly is 1 of the 
curusest things in nater to see a rispecktable 
dri goods dealer (deekon off a chutch mayby) 
a riggin' himself out in the Weigh they du and 
struttin' round in the Reign aspilin' histrowsis 
and niakin' wet goods of himself. Ef any thin's 
foolisher and moor dicklus than militerry gloa- 
ry it is milishy gloary. — H. B. 



Is round your throat an' you a copse, 'fore 

you can say, "Wut air ye at ? "* 
You never see sech darned gret bugs (it 

may not be irrelevant 
To say I 've seen a scarabceus pilularius^ 

big ez a year old elephant), 
The rigiment come up one day in time 

to stop a red bug 
From runnin' off with Cunnle Wright, 

— 't wuz jest a common cimex Icc- 
tularius. 

One night I started up on eend an' 

thought I wuz to hum agin, 
I heern a horn, thinks I it 's Sol the 

fisherman hez come agin, 
His bellowses is sound enough, — ez I 'm 

a livin' creeter, 
I felt a thing go thru my leg, — 't wuz 

nothin' more n a skeeter ! 
Then there 's the yaller fever, tu, they 

call it here el vomito, — 
(Come, thet wun't du, you landcrab 

there, I tell ye to le' go my toe ! 
My gracious ! it 's a scorpion thet 's took 

a shine to play with 't, 
I darsn't skeer the tarnal thing fer fear 

he 'd run away with 't.) 
Afore I come away from hum I hed a 

strong persuasion 
Thet Mexicans worn't human beans, % 

— an ourang outang nation, 

A sort o' folks a chap could kill an' 

never dream on 't arter, 
No more 'n a feller 'd dream o' pigs thet 

he hed hed to slarter ; 
I 'd an idee thet they were built arter 

the darkie fashion all, 
An' kickin' colored folks about, you 

know, 's a kind o' national ; 
But wen I jined I wornt so wise ez thet 

air queen o' Sheby, 
Fer, come to look at 'em, they aint 

much diff'rent from wut we be, 
An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' thir 

own dominions, 

* these fellers are verry proppilly called Rank 
Heroes, and the more tha kill the ranker and 
more Herowick tha bekum. — H. B. 

f it wuz " tumblebug " as he Writ it, but the 
parson put the Latten instid. i sed tother maid 
better meeter, but he said tha was eddykated 
peepl to Boston and tha would n't stan' it no 
how. idnow as tha wood and idnow as tha 
wood. — H. B. 

X he means human beins, that 's wut he 
means, i spose he kinder thought tha wuz 
human beans ware the Xisle Poles comes from. 
— H B. 



174 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our 

eagle's pinions, 
Wich means to take a feller up jest by 

the slack o' 's trowsis 
An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' 

all his homes an' houses ; 
"Wal, it doos seem a cur us way, but then 

hooraw fer Jackson ! 
It must be right, fer Caleb sez it 's reg'- 

lar Anglo -sax on. 
The Mex'cans don't light fair, they say, 

they piz'n all the water, 
An' du amazin' lots o' things thet is n't 

wut they ough' to ; 
Bein' they haint no lead, they make 

their bullets out o' copper 
An' shoot the darned things at us, tu, 

wich Caleb sez aint proper ; 
He sez they 'd ough' to stan' right up 

an' let us pop 'em fairly 
(Guess wen he ketches 'em at thet he '11 

hev to git up airly), 
Thet our nation 's bigger 'n theirn an' 

so its rights air bigger, 
An' thet it 's all to make 'em free thet 

we air pullin' trigger, 
Thet Anglo Saxondom's idee 's abreakin' 

'em to pieces, 
An' thet idee 's thet every man doos jest 

wut he damn pleases ; ■ 
Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, per- 
haps in some respex I can, 
I know thet "every man" don't mean 

a nigger or a Mexican ; 
An' there 's another thing I know, an' 

thet is, ef these creeturs, 
Thet stick an Anglosaxon mask onto 

State-prison feeturs, 
Should come to Jaalam Centre fer to 

argify an' spout on 't, 
The gals 'ould count the silver spoons 

the minnit they cleared out on 't. 

This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one 

agreeable feetur, 
An' ef it worn't fer wakin' snakes, I 'd 

home agin short meter ; 
0, would n't I be off, quick time, ef 't 

worn't thet I wuz sartin 
They 'd let the daylight into me to pay 

me fer desartin ! * 
I don't approve o' tellin' tales, but jest 

to you I may state 
Our ossifers aint wut they wuz afore 

they left the Bay-state ; 
Then it wuz "Mister Sawin, sir, you 're 

middlin' well now, be ye ? 



Step up an' take a nipper, sir ; I 'm 

dreffle glad to see ye " ; 
But now it 's "Ware 's my eppylet ? 

here, Sawin, step an' fetch it! 
An' mind your eye, be thund' rin' spry, 

or, damn ye, you shall ketch it ! " 
Wal, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will 

bile so, but by mighty, 
Ef I hed some on 'em to hum, I 'd give 

'em linkum vfty, 
I 'd ]>lay the rogue's march on thei? 

hides an' other music follerin' — 
But I must close my letter here, fer one 

on 'em 's ahollerin', 
These Anglosaxon ossifers, — wal, taint 

no use ajawin', 
I 'm safe enlisted fer the war, 
Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDOM SAWIN. 

[Those have not been wanting (as, indeed, 
when hath Satan been to seek for attorneys?) 
who have maintained that our late inroad upon 
Mexico was undertaken, not so much for the 
avenging of any national quarrel, as for the 
spreading of free institutions and of Protest- 
antism. Capita vix duabus Anticyris medenda ! 
Verily I admire that no pious sergeant among 
these new Crusaders beheld Martin Luther rid- 
ing at the front of the host upon a tamed pon- 
tifical bull, as, in that former invasion of 
Mexico, the zealous Gomara (spawn though he 
were of the Scarlet Woman) was favored with 
a vision of St. James of Compostella, skewering 
the infidels upon his apostolical lance. "We 
read, also, that Richard of the lion heart, hav- 
ing gone to Palestine on a similar errand of 
mercy, was divinely encouraged to cut the 
throats of such Paynims as refused to swallow 
the bread of life (doubtless that they might be 
thereafter incapacitated for swallowing the 
filthy gobbets of Mahound) by angels of heav- 
en, who cried to the king and his knights, — 
Seigneurs, tuez J tuez ! providentially using the 
French tongue, as being the only one under- 
stood by their auditors. This would argue for 
the pantoglottism of these celestial intelligences, 
while, on the other hand, the Devil, teste Cot- 
ton Mather, is unversed in certain of the Indian 
dialects. Yet must he be a semeiologist the 
most expert, making himself intelligible to 
every people and kindred by signs ; no other 
discourse, indeed, being needful, than such as 
the mackerel-fisher holds with his finned quar- 
rv, who, if other bait be wanting, can by a bare 
bit of white rag at the end of a string captivate 
those foolish fishes. Such piscatorial oratory 
is Satan cunning in. Before one he trails a hat 
and feather, or a bare feather without a hat ; 
before another, a Presidential chair or a tide- 
waiter's stool, or a pulpit in the city, no matter 
what. To us, dangling there over our heads, 
they seem junkets dropped out of the seventh 
heaven, sops dipped in nectar, but, once in our 
mouths, they are all one, bits of 1 tizzy cotton. 

This, however, by the way. It is time now 
revocare gradum. While so many miracles of 
this sort, vouched by eyewitnesses, have en- 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



175 



eouraged the arms of Papists, not to speak of 
Echetleeus at Marathon and those Dioscuri 
(whom we must conclude imps -of the pit) who 
sundry times captained the pagan Roman sol- 
diery, it is strange that our first American cru- 
sade was not in some such wise also signalized. 
Yet it is said that the Lord hath manifestly 
prospered our armies. This opens the ques- 
tion, whether, when our hands are strength- 
ened to make great slaughter of our enemies, 
it be absolutely and demonstratively certain 
that this might is added to us from above, or 
whether some Potentate from an opposite 
quarter may not have a finger in it, as there are 
few pies into which his meddling digits are not 
thrust. Would the Sanctifier and Setter-apart 
of the seventh day have assisted in a victory 
gained on the Sabbath, as was one in the late 
war? Or has that day become less an object 
of his. especial care since the year 1697, when 
so manifest a provideuce occurred to Mr. Wil- 
liam Trowbridge, in answer to whose prayers, 
when he and all on shipboard with him were 
starving, a dolphin was sent daily, "which was 
enough to serve 'em ; only on Saturdays they 
still catched a couple, and on the Lord's Days 
they could catch none at all " ? Haply they 
might have been permitted, by way of mortifi- 
cation, to take some few sculpins (those banes 
of the salt-water angler), which unseemly fish 
would, moreover, have conveyed to them a 
symbolical reproof for their breach of the day, 
being known in the rude dialect of our mari- 
ners as Cape Cod Clergymen. 

It has been a refreshment to many nice con- 
sciences to know that our Chief Magistrate 
would not regard with eyes of approval the (by 
many esteemed) sinful pastime of dancing, and 
I own myself to be so far of that mind, that I 
could not but set my face against this Mexican 
Polka, though danced to the Presidential pip- 
ing with a Gubernatorial second. If ever the 
country should be seized with another such 
mania de propaganda fide, I think it would be 
wise to fill our bombshells with alternate cop- 
ies of the Cambridge Platform and the Thirty- 
nine Articles, which would produce a mixture 
of the highest explosive power, and to wrap 
every one of our cannon-balls in a leaf of the 
New Testament, the reading of which is denied 
to those who sit in the darkness of Popery. 
Those iron evangelists would thus be able to 
disseminate vital religion and Gospel truth in 
quarters inaccessible to the ordinary mission- 
ary. I have seen lads, unimpregnate with the 
more sublimated punctiliousness of Walton, 
secure pickerel, taking their unwary siesta be- 
neath the lily-pads too nigh the surface, with 
a gun and small shot. Why not, then, since 
gunpowder was unknown in the time of the 
Apostles (not to enter here upon the question 
whether it were discovered before that period 
by the Chinese), suit our metaphor to the age 
in which we live, and say shooters as well as 
fishers of men ? 

I do much fear that we shall be seized now 
and then with a Protestant fervor, as long as 
we have neighbor Naboths whose wallowings 
in Papistical mire excite our horror m exact 
proportion to the size and desirableness of their 
vineyards. Yet I rejoice that some earnest 
Protestants have been made by this war, — I 
mean those who protested against it. Fewer 
they were than I could wish, for one might im- 



agine America to have been colonized by a 
tribe of those nondescript African animals the 
Aye-Ayes, so difficult a word is No to us all. 
There is some malformation or defect of the 
vocal organs, which either prevents our utter- 
ing it at all, or gives it so thick a pronunciation 
as to be unintelligible. A mouth filled with 
the national pudding, or watering in expecta- 
tion thereof, is wholly incompetent to this re- 
fractory monosyllable. An abject and herpetic 
Public Opinion is the Pope, the Anti-Christ, 
for us to protest against e corde cordium. And 
by what College of Cardinals is this our God's- 
vicar, our binder and looser, elected ? Very 
like, by the sacred conclave of Tag, Rag, and 
Bobtail, in the gracious atmosphere of the 
grog-shop. Yet it is of this that we must all 
be puppets. This thumps the pulpit-cushion, 
this guides the editor's pen, this wags the sen- 
ator's tongue. This decides wmat Scriptures 
are canonical, and shuffles Christ away into 
the Apocrypha. According to that sentence 
fathered upon Solon, Oi/tw SrjfXQaLov kolkov 
ipx^rai oikclS' eKacrrcp. This unclean spirit is 
skilful to assume various shapes. I have known 
it to enter my own study and nudge my elbow 
of a Saturday, under the semblance of a wealthy 
member of my congregation. It were a great 
blessing, if every particular of what in the sum 
w r e call popular sentiment could carry about 
the name of its manufacturer stamped legibly 
upon it. I gave a stab under the fifth rib to 
that pestilent fallacy, — " Our country, right 
or wrong," — by tracing its original to a speech 
of Ensign Cilley at a dinner of the Bungtown 
Fencibles. — H. W.] 



No. III. 

WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS. 

[A few remarks on the following verses will 
not be out of place. The satire in them was 
not meant to have any personal, but only a 
general, application. Of the gentleman upon 
whose letter they were intended as a commen- 
tary Mr. Biglow had never heard, till he saw the 
letter itself. The position of the satirist is 
oftentimes one which he would not have chos- 
en, had the election been left to himself. In 
attacking bad principles, he is obliged to select 
some individual who has made himself their 
exponent, and in whom they are impersonate, 
to the end that what he says may not, through 
ambiguity, be dissipated tenues in auras. For 
what says Seneca? Longum iter per prcecepta, 
breve et efixcace 'per exem.pla, A bad principle is 
comparatively harmless while it continues to 
be an abstraction, nor can the general mind 
comprehend it fully till it is printed in that 
large type which all men can read at sight, 
namely, the life and character, the sayings and 
doings, of particular persons. It is one of the 
cunningest fetches of Satan, that he never ex- 
poses himself directly to our arrows, but, still 
dodging behind this neighbor or that acquaint- 
ance, compels us to wound him through them, 
if at all. He holds our affections as hostages, 
the while he patches up a truce with our con- 
science. 



176 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Meanwhile, let us not forget that the aim of 
the true satirist is not to be severe upon per- 
sons, but only upon falsehood, and, as Truth 
and Falsehood start from the same point, and 
sometimes even go along together for a little 
way, his business is to follow the path of the 
latter after it diverges, and to show her floun- 
dering in the bog at the end of it. Truth is 
quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so 
brave a simplicity in her, that she can no more 
be made ridiculous than an oak or a pine. The 
danger of the satirist is, that continual use may 
deaden his sensibility to the force of language. 
He becomes more and more liable to strike 
harder than he knows or intends. He may be 
careful to put on his boxing-gloves, and yet 
forget that, the older they grow, the more 
plainly may the knuckles inside be felt. More- 
over, in the heat of contest, the eye is insensi- 
bly drawn to the crown of victory, whose taw- 
dry tinsel glitters through that dust of the ring 
which obscures Truth's wreath of simple leaves. 
I have sometimes thought that my young 
friend, Mr. Biglow, needed a monitory hand 
laid on his arm, — aliquid safflaminandus erat. 
I have never thought it good husbandry to 
water the tender plants of reform with aqua 
fortis, yet, where so much is to do in the beds, 
he were a sorry gardener who should wage a 
whole day's war with an iron scuffle on those 
ill weeds that make the garden-walks of. life 
unsightly, when a sprinkle of Attic salt will 
wither them up. Est ars etiam maledicendi, 
says Scaliger, and truly it is a hard thing to 
say where the graceful gentleness of the lamb 
merges in downright sheepishness. We may 
conclude with worthy and wise Dr. Fuller, that 
"one may be a lamb in private wrongs, but in 
hearing general affronts to goodness they are 
asses which are not lions." — H. W.] 

Guvener B. is a sensible man ; 

He stays to his home an' looks arter 
his folks ; 
He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, 
An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes ; 
But John P. 
Eobinson he 
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 

My ! aint it terrible ? Wut shall we du ? 
We can't never choose him o' course, 
— thet 's flat ; 
Guess we shall hevtocome round, (don't 
you ?) 
An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all 
that ; 
Fer John P. 
Eobinson he 
Sez he vrunt vote fer Guvener B. 

Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man : 

He 's ben on all sides thet give places 

or pelf ; 
But consistency still wuz a part of his 

plan, — 



He 's ben true to one party, — an' thet 
is himself ; — 
So John P. 
Eobinson he 
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 

Gineral C. he goes in fer the war ; 
He don't vally principle more 'n an 
old cud ; 
Wut did God make us raytional creeturs 
fer, 
But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' 
blood ? 
So John P. 
Eobinson he 
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 

We were gittin' on nicely up here to our 
village, 
With good old idees o' wut 's right an' 
wut aint, 
We kind o' thought Christ went agin 
war an' pillage, 
An' thet eppyletts worn't the best 
mark of a saint ; 
But John P. 
Eobinson he 
Sez this kind o' thing 's an exploded 
idee. 

The side of our country must oilers be 
took, 
An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is 
our country. 
An' the angel thet writes all our sins in 
a book 
Puts the debit to him, an' to us the 
per contry ; 
An' John P. 
Eobinson he 
Sez this is his view o' the thing to 
aT. 

Parson Wilbur he calls all these argi- 
munts lies ; 
Sez they 're nothin' on airth but jest 
fee, faw, fum : 
An' thet all this big talk of our des- 
tinies 
Is half on it ign'ance, an' t' other half 
rum ; 
But John P. 
Eobinson he 
Sez it aint no sech thing ; an', of 
course, so must we. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



177 



Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his 
life 
Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their 
swaller-tail coats, 
An' marched round in front of a drum 
an' a fife, 
To git some on 'em office, an' some on 
'em votes ; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez they did n't know everythin' 
down in Judee. 

Wal, it 's a marcy we 've gut folks to 
tell us 
The rights an' the wrongs o' these 
matters, I vow, — 
God sends country lawyers, an' other 
wise fellers, 
To start the world's team wen it gits in 
a slough ; 
Fer John P. 
Eobinson he 
Sez the world '11 go right, ef he hol- 
lers out Gee ! 



[The attentive reader will doubtless have 
perceived in the foregoing poem an allusion to 
that pernicious sentiment, — "Our country, 
right or wrong." It is an abuse of language to 
call a certain portion of land, much more, cer- 
tain personages, elevated for the time being to 
high station, our country. I would not sever 
nor loosen a single one of those ties by which 
we are united to the spot of our birth, nor min- 
ish by a tittle the respect due to the Magis- 
trate. I love our own Bay State too well to do 
the one, and as for the other, I have myself for 
nigh forty years exercised, however unworthily, 
the function of Justice of the Peace, having 
been called thereto by the unsolicited kindness 
of that most excellent man and upright patriot, 
Caleb Strong. Patrice fumus igne alieno lucu- 
lentior is best qualified with this, — Ubi liber- 
tas, ibi patria. We are inhabitants of two 
worlds, and owe a double, but not a divided 
allegiance. In virtue of our clay, this little ball 
of earth exacts a certain loyalty of us, while, in 
our capacity as spirits, we are admitted citizens 
of an invisible and holier fatherland. There is 
a patriotism of the soul whose claim absolves 
us from our other and terrene fealty. Our true 
country is that ideal realm which we represent 
to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, 
and the like. Our terrestrial organizations are 
but far-off approaches to so fair a model, and 
all they are verily traitors who resist not any 
attempt to divert them from this their original 
intendment. When, therefore, one would have 
us to fling up our caps and shout with the mul- 
titude, — " Our country, however bounded !" he 
demands of us that we sacrifice the larger to the 
less, the higher to the lower, and that we yield 
to the imaginary claims of a few acres of soil 
our duty and privilege as liegemen of Truth. 



Our true country is bounded on the north and 
the south, on the east and the west, by Justice, 
and when she oversteps that invisible boundary- 
line by so much as a hair's-breadth, she ceases 
to be our mother, and chooses rather to be 
looked upon quasi noverca. That is a hard 
choice when our earthly love of country calls 
upon us to tread one path and our duty points 
us to another. We must make as noble and 
becoming an election as did Penelope between 
Icarius and Ulysses. Veiling our faces, we 
must take silently the hand of Duty to follow 
her. 

Shortly after the publication of the foregoing 
poem, there appeared some comments upon it 
in one of the x>ublic prints which seemed to 
call for animadversion. I accordingly addressed 
to Mr. Buckingham, of the Boston Courier, the 
following letter. 



" Jaalam, November 4, 1847. 
" To the Editor of the Courier : 

" Respected Sir, — Calling at the post-office 
this morning, our worthy and efficient postmas- 
ter offered for my perusal a paragraph in the 
Boston Morning Post of the 3d instant, wherein 
certain effusions of the pastoral muse are at- 
tributed to the pen of Mr. James Russell Low- 
ell. For aught I know or can affirm to the 
contrary, this Mr. Lowell may be a very de- 
serving person and a youth of parts (though I 
have seen verses of his which I could never 
rightly understand) ; and if he be such, he, I 
am certain, as well as I, would be free from any 
proclivity to appropriate to himself whatever 
of credit (or discredit) may honestly belong to 
another. I am confident, that, in penning 
these few lines, I am only forestalling a dis- 
claimer from that young gentleman, whose 
silence hitherto, when rumor pointed to him- 
ward, has excited in my bosom mingled emo- 
tions of sorrow and surprise. Well may my 
young parishioner, Mr. Biglow, exclaim with 
the poet, 

• Sic vos non vobis,' &c. ; 

though, in saying this, I would not convey the 
impression that he is a proficient in the Latin 
tongue, — the tongue, I might add, of a Horace 
and a Tully. 

"Mr. B. does not employ his pen, I can 
safely say, for any lucre of worldly gain, or to 
be exalted by the carnal plaudits of men, digito 
monstrari, &c. He does not wait upon Provi- 
dence for mercies, and in his heart mean merges. 
But I should esteem myself as verily deficient 
in my duty (who am his friend and in some un- 
worthy sort his spiritual fidus Achates, &c), if 
I did not step forward to claim for him what- 
ever measure of applause might be assigned to 
him by the judicious. 

" If this were a fitting occasion, I might ven- 
ture here a brief dissertation touching the 
manner and kind of my young friend's poetry. 
But I dubitate whether this abstruser sort of 
speculation (though enlivened by some apposite 
instances from Aristophanes) would sufficiently 
interest your oppidan readers. As regards their 
satirical tone, and their plainness of speech, I 
will only say, that, in my pastoral experience, 
I have found that the Arch-Enemy loves noth- 
ing Toetter than to be treated as a religious, 



178 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



moral, and intellectual being, and that there is 
no apage Sathanas ! so potent as ridicule. But 
it is a kind of weapon that must have a button 
of good-nature on the point of it. 

" The productions of Mr. B. have been stig- 
matized in some quarters as unpatriotic ; but 
I can vouch that lie loves his native soil with 
that hearty, though discriminating, attachment 
which springs from an intimate social inter- 
course of many years' standing. In the plough- 
ing season, no one has a deeper share in the 
well-being of the country than he. If Dean 
Swift were right in saying that he who makes 
two blades of grass grow where one grew before 
confers a greater benefit on the state than he 
who taketh a city, Mr. B. might exhibit a fairer 
claim to the Presidency than General Scott 
himself. I think that some of those disinter- 
ested lovers of the hard-handed democracy, 
whose fingers have never touched anything 
rougher than the dollars of our common coun- 
try, would hesitate to compare palms with him. 
It would do your heart good, respected Sir, to 
see that young man mow. He cuts a cleaner 
and wider swath than any in this town. 

" But it is time for me to be at my Post. It 
is very clear that my young friend's shot has 
struck the lintel, for the Post is shaken (Amos 
ix. 1). The editor of that paper is a strenuous 
advocate of the Mexican war, and a colonel, as 
I am given to understand. I presume, that, 
being necessarily absent in Mexico, he has left 
his journal in some less judicious hands. At 
any rate, the Post has been too swift on this 
occasion. It could hardly have cited a more 
incontrovertible line from any poem than that 
which it has selected for animadversion, name- 
ly, - 

• We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pil- 
lage. 

44 If the Post maintains the converse of this 
proposition, it can hardly be considered as a 
safe guide-post for the moral and religious por- 
tions of its party, however many other excel- 
lent qualities of a post it may be blessed with. 
There is a sign in London on Avhich is painted, 
— ' The Green Man.' It would do very well as 
a portrait of any individual who would support 
so unscriptural a thesis. As regards the lan- 
guage of the line in question, I am bold to say 
that Pie who readeth the hearts of men will not 
account any dialect unseemly which conveys a 
sound and pious sentiment. I could wish that 
such sentiments were more comnfon, however 
uncouthly expressed. Saint Ambrose affirms, 
that Veritas a quocunque (why not, then, quo- 
moclocunque ?) dicatur, a spiritu sancto est. Di- 
gest also this of Baxter : 'The plainest words 
are the most profitable oratory in the weightiest 
matters.' 

" When the paragraph in question was shown 
to Mr. Biglow, the only part of it which seemed 
to give him any dissatisfaction was that which 
classed him with the Whig party. He says, 
that, if resolutions are a nourishing kind of 
diet, that party must be in a very hearty and 
flourishing condition ; for that they have qui- 
etly eaten more good ones of their own baking 
than he could have conceived to be possible 
without repletion. He has been for some years 
past (1 regret to say) an ardent opponent of 
those sound doctrines of protective policy which 



form so prominent a portion of the creed of that 
party. I confess, that, in some discussions 
which I have had with him on this point in my 
study, he has displayed a vein of obstinacy 
which I had not hitherto detected in his com- 
position. He is also (horresco refercns) infected 
in no small measure with the peculiar notions 
of a print called the Liberator, whose heresies 
I take every proper opportunity of combating, 
and of which, I thank God, I have never read a 
single line. 

" I did not see Mr. B.'s verses until they ap- 
peared in print, and there is certainly one thing 
in them which I consider highly improper. I 
allude to the personal references to myself by 
name. To confer notoriety on an humble indi- 
vidual who is laboring quietly in his vocation, 
and who keeps his cloth as free as he can from 
the dust of the political arena (though vcu mihi 
si non cvangclizavero), is no doubt an indeco- 
rum. The sentiments which he attributes to 
me I will not deny to be mine. They were em- 
bodied, though in a different form, in a dis- 
course preached upon the last day of public 
fasting, and were acceptable to my entire peo- 
ple (of whatever political views), except the 
postmaster, who dissented ex officio. I observe 
that you sometimes devote a portion of your 
paper to a religious summary. I should be well 
pleased to furnish a copy of my discourse for 
insertion in this department of your instructive 
journal. By omitting the advertisements, it 
might easily be got within the limits of a single 
number, and I venture to insure you the sale 
of some scores of copies in this town. I will 
cheerfully render myself responsible for ten. 
It might possibly be advantageous to issue it 
as an extra. But perhaps you will not esteem 
it an object, and I will not press it. My offer 
does not spring from any weak desire of seeing 
my name in print; for I can enjoy this satis- 
faction at any time by turning to the Triennial 
Catalogue of -the University, where it also pos- 
sesses that added emphasis of Italics with which 
those of my calling are distinguished. 

" I would simply add. that" I continue to fit 
ingenuous youth for college, and that I have 
two spacious and airy sleeping apartments at 
this moment unoccupied. Ingenuas didicisse, 
&c. Terms, which vary according to the cir- 
cumstances of the parents, may be known on 
application to me by letter, post-paid. In all 
cases the lad will be expected to fetch his own 
towels. This rule, Mrs. W. desires me to add, 
has no exceptions. 

" Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"HOMER WILBUR, A. M. 

" P. S. Perhaps the last paragraph may look 
like an attempt to obtain the insertion of my 
circular gratuitously. If it should appear to 
you in that light, I desire that you would erase 
it, or charge for it at the usual rates, and de- 
duct the amount from the proceeds in your 
hands from the sale of my discourse, when it 
shall be printed. My circular is much longer 
and more explicit, and will be forwarded with- 
out charge to any who may desire it. It has 
been very neatly executed on a letter sheet, by 
a very deserving printer, who attends upon my 
ministry, and is a creditable specimen of the 
typographic art. I have one hung over my 
mantel-piece in a neat frame, where it makes a 






THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



179 



beautiful and appropriate ornament, and bal- 
ances the profile of Mrs. W., cut with her toes 
by the young lady born without arms. 

"H. W." 



I have in the foregoing letter mentioned Gen- 
eral Scott in connection with the Presidency, 
because I have been given to understand that 
he has blown to pieces and otherwise caused 
to be destroyed more Mexicans than any other 
commander. His claim would therefore be de- 
servedly considered the strongest. Until accu- 
rate returns of the Mexicans killed, wounded, 
and maimed be obtained, it will be difficult to 
settle these nice points of precedence. Should 
it prove that any other officer has been more 
meritorious and destructive than General S., 
and has thereby rendered himself more worthy 
of the confidence and support of the conserva- 
tive portion of our community, I shall cheer- 
fully insert his name, instead of that of General 
S., in a future edition. It may be thought, like- 
wise, that General S. has invalidated his claims 
by too much attention to the decencies of ap- 
parel, and the habits belonging to a gentleman. 
These abstruser points of statesmanship are be- 
yond my scope. I wonder not that successful 
military achievement should attract the admi- 
ration of the multitude. Rather do I rejoice 
with wonder to behold how rapidly this senti- 
ment is losing its hold upon the popular mind. 
It is related of Thomas Warton, the second of 
that honored name who held the office of Poe- 
try Professor at Oxford, that, when one wished 
to find him, being absconded, as was his wont, 
in some obscure alehouse, he was counselled to 
traverse the city with a drum and fife, the 
sound of which inspiring music would be sure 
to draw the Doctor from his retirement into 
the street. We are all more or less bitten with 
this martial insanity. Nescio qua dulcedine 
.... cunctos ducit. I confess to some infec- 
tion of that itch myself. When I see a Briga- 
dier-General maintaining his insecure elevation 
in the saddle under the severe fire of the train- 
ing-field, and when I remember that some mil- 
itary enthusiast^, through haste, inexperience, 
or an over-desire to lend reality to those ficti- 
tious combats, will sometimes discharge their 
ramrods, I cannot but admire, while I deplore, 
the mistaken deA'otion of those heroic officers. 
Spmel insanivimus omnes. I was myself, dur- 
ing the late war with Great Britain, chaplain 
of a regiment, which was fortunately never 
called to active military duty. I mention this 
circumstance with regret rather than pride. 
Had I been summoned to actual warfare, I 
trust that I might have been strengthened to 
bear myself after the manner of that reverend 
father in our New England Israel, Dr. Benja- 
min Colman, who, as we are told in Turell's life 
of him, when the vessel in which he had taken 
passage for England was attacked by a French 
privateer, "fought like a philosopher and a 
Christian, .... and prayed all the while he 
charged and fired." As this note is already 
long, I shall not here enter upon a discussion 
of the question, whether Christians may law- 
fully be soldiers. I think it sufficiently, evi- 
dent, that, during the first two centuries of the 
Christian era, at least, the two professions 
were esteemed incompatible. Consult Jortin 
on this head. — H. W.] 



No. IV. 

REMARKS OF INCREASE D. O'PHACE, ES- 
QUIRE, AT AN EXTRUMPERY CAUCUS IN 
STATE STREET, REPORTED BY MR. H. 
BIGLOW. 

[The ingenious reader will at once understand " 
that no such speech as the following was ever 
totidem verbis pronounced. But there are sim- 
pler and less guarded wits, for the satisfying of 
which such an explanation may be needful. 
For there are certain invisible lines, which as 
Truth successively overpasses, she becomes 
Untruth to one and another of us, as a large 
river, flowing from one kingdom into another, 
sometimes takes a new name, albeit the waters 
undergo no change, how small soever. There 
is, moreover, a truth of fiction more veracious 
than the truth of fact, as that of the Poet, 
which represents to us things and events as 
they ought to be, rather than servilely copies 
them as they are imperfectly imaged in the 
crooked and smoky glass of our mundane affairs. 
It is this which makes the speech of Antonius, 
though originally spoken in no wider a forum 
than the brain of Shakespeare, more histori- 
cally valuable than that other which Appian 
has reported, by as much as the understanding 
of the Englishman was more comprehensive 
than that of the Alexandrian. Mr. Biglow, in 
the present instance, has only made use of a 
license assumed by all the historians of antiq- 
uity, who put into the mouths of various char- 
acters such words as seem to them most fitting 
to the occasion and to the speaker. If it be 
objected that no such oration could ever have 
been delivered, I answer, that there are few 
assemblages for speech-making which do not 
better deserve the title of Parliamentum Indoc- 
torum than did the sixth Parliament of Henry 
the Fourth, and that men still continue to have 
as much faith in the Oracle of Fools as ever 
Pantagruel had. Howell, in his letters, re- 
counts a merry tale of a certain ambassador of 
Queen Elizabeth, who, having written two let- 
ters, — one to her Majesty, and the other to his 
wife, — directed them at cross-purposes, so that 
the Queen was beducked and bedeared and re- 
quested to send a change of hose, and the wife 
was beprincessed and otherwise unwontedly 
besuperlatived, till the one feared for the wits 
of her ambassador, and the other for those of 
her husband. In like manner it may be pre- 
sumed that our speaker has misdirected some 
of his thoughts, and given to the whole theatre 
what he would have wished to confide only to' 
a select auditory at the back of the curtain. 
For it is seldom that we can get any frank ut- 
terance from men, who address, for the most 
part, a Buncombe either in this world or the 
next. As for their audiences, it may be truly 
said of our people, that they enjoy one political 
institution in common with the ancient Athe- 
nians : I mean a certain jxrofitless kind of ostra- 
cism, wherewith, nevertheless, they seem hith- 
erto well enough content. For in Presidential 
elections, and other affairs of the sort, whereas 
I observe that the oysters fall to the lot of com- 
paratively few, the shells (such as the privileges 
of voting as they are told to do by the ostrivori 
aforesaid, and of huzzaing at public meetings) 



180 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



are very liberally distributed among the people, 
as being their prescriptive and quite sufficient 
portion. 

The occasion of the speech is supposed to be 
Mr. Palfrey's refusal to vote for the Whig can- 
didate for the Speakership. — H. W.J 



No ? Hez he ? He liaint, though ? 

Wut ? Voted agin him ? 
Ef the bird of our country could ketch 

him, she 'd skin him ; 
I seem 's though I see her, with wrath 

in each quill, 
Like a chancery lawyer, afilin' her bill, 
An' grindin' her talents ez sharp ez all 

nater, 
To pounce like a writ on the back o' the 

traitor. 
Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be 

het, 
But a crisis like this must with vigor be 

met ; 
Wen an Arnold the star-spangled ban- 
ner bestains, 
Holl Fourth o' Julys seem to bile in my 

veins. 

Who ever'd ha' thought sech a pisonous 

rig 
Would be run by a chap thet wuz chose 

fer a Wig ? " 
1 ' We knowed wut his principles wuz 

'fore we sent him ? " 
Wut wuz ther in them from this vote to 

prevent him ? 
A marciful Providunce fashioned us hol- 
ler 
0' purpose thet we might our principles 

swaller ; 
It can hold any quantity on 'em, the 

belly can, 
An' bring 'em up ready fer use like the 

pelican, 
Or more like the kangaroo, who (wich is 

stranger) 
Puts her family into her pouch wen 

there 's danger. 
Aint principle precious ? then, who 's 

goin' to use it 
Wen there \s resk o' some chap's gittin' 

up to abuse it ? 
I can't tell the wy on 't, but nothin' is 

so sure 
Ez thet principle kind o' gits spiled by 

exposure ; * 

* The speaker is of a different mind from 
Tully, who, in his recently discovered tractate 
De Repubiica, tells us, — Nee vero habere virtu- 



A man thet lets all sorts o' folks git a 

sight on 't 
Ough' to hev it all took right away, 

every mite on 't ; 
Ef he can't keep it all to himself wen 

it 's wise to, 
He aint one it \s fit to trust nothin' so 

nice to. 

Besides, ther 's a wonderful power in 

latitude 
To shift a man's morril relations an' at- 
titude ; 
Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty 's 

granted 
The minnit it 's proved to be thoroughly 

wanted, 
Thet a change o' demand makes a change 

o' condition, 
An' thet everythin' 's nothin' except by 

position ; 
Ez, fer instance, thet rubber-trees fust 

begun bearin' 
Wen p'litikle conshunces come into 

wearin', — 
Thet the fears of a monkey, whose holt 

chanced to fail, 
Drawed the vertibrv out to a prehensile 

tail; 
So, wen one 's chose to Congriss, ez soon 

ez lie 's in it, 
A collar grows right round his neck in a 

minnit, 
An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be 

strict 
In bein' himself, wen he gits to the 

Deestrict, 
Fer a coat thet sets wal here in ole Mas- 
sachusetts, 
Wen it gits on to Washinton, somehow 

askew sets. 

Resolves, do you say, o' the Springfield 

Convention ? 
Thet 's percisely the pint I was goin' to 

mention : 



tern satis est, quasi artem aliquam, nisi vtare. 
and from our Milton, who says: 4< I cannot 
praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexer- 
cised and unbreathed, that never sallies out 
and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the 
race where that immortal garland is to be run 
for, not without dust and heat." — Areov. He 
had taken the words out of the Roman's mouth, 
without knowing it, and might well exclaim 
with Austin (if a saint's name may stand spon- 
sor for a curse), Pereant qui ante nos nostra 
dixeriut J — H. W. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



181 



Resolves air a thing we most gen'ally 

keep ill, 
They 're a cheap kind o' dust fer the 

eyes o' the people ; 
A parcel o' delligits jest git together 
An' chat fer a spell o' the crops an' the 

weather, 
Then, comin' to order, they squabble 

awile 
An' let off the speeches they 're ferful '11 

spile ; 
Then — Resolve, — Thet we wunt hev 

an inch o' slave territory ; 
Thet President Polk's holl perceedins air 

very tory ; 
Thet the war is a damned war, an' them 

thet enlist in it 
Should hev a cravat with a dreffle tight 

twist in it ; 
Thet the war is a war fer the spreadin' 

o' slavery ; 
Thet our army desarves our best thanks 

fer their bravery ; 
Thet we 're the original friends o' the 

nation, 
All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrica- 
tion ; 
Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' 

C, 
An' ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G. 
In this way they go to the eend o' the 

chapter, 
An' then they bust out in a kind of a 

raptur 
About their own vartoo, an' folks' s 

stone-blindness 
To the men thet 'ould actilly do 'em a 

kindness, — 
The American eagle, — the Pilgrims thet 

landed, — 
Till on ole Plymouth Rock they git 

finally stranded. 
Wal, the people they listen an' say, 

" Thet 's the ticket ; 
Ez fer Mexico, 't aint no great glory to 

lick it, 
But 't would be a darned shame to go 

pullin' o' triggers 
To extend the aree of abusin' the nig- 
gers." 

So they march in percessions, an' git up 

hooraws, 
An' tramp thru the mud fer the good o' 

the cause, 
| An' think they 're a kind o' fulfillin' the 

prophecies, 



Wen they 're on'y jest changin' the 
holders of offices ; 

Ware A sot afore, B is comf'tably seated, 

One humbug 's victor'ous an' t' other de- 
feated, 

Each honnable doughface gits jest wut 
he axes, 

An' the people, — their annooal soft- 
sod der an' taxes. 

Now, to keep unimpaired all these glo- 
rious feeturs 
Thet characterize morril an' reasonin' 

creeturs, 
Thet give every paytriot all he can cram, 
Thet oust the untrustworthy Presidunt 

Flam, 
An' stick honest Presidunt Sham in his 

place, 
To the manifest gain o' the holl human 

race, 
An' to some indervidgewals on 't in 

partickler, 
Who love Public Opinion an' know how 

to tickle her, — 
I say thet a party with gret aims like 

these 
Must stick jest ez close ez a hive full o' 

bees. 

I 'm willin' a man should go tollable 

strong 
Agin wrong in the abstract, fer thet kind 

o' wrong 
Is oilers unpop'lar an' never gits pitied, 
Because it 's a crime no one never com- 
mitted ; 
But he mus' n't be hard on partickler 

sins, 
Coz then he '11 be kickin' the people's 

own shins ; 
On'y look at the Demmercrats, see wut 

they 've done 
Jest simply by stickin' together like 

fun; 
They 've sucked us right into a mis'able 

war 
Thet no one on airth aint responsible 

for; 
They 've run us a hundred cool millions 

in debt 
(An' fer Demmercrat Homers ther 's 

good plums left yet); 
They talk agin tayriffs, but act fer a 

high one, 
An' so coax all parties to build up their 

Zion ; 



182 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



To the people they 're oilers ez slick ez 

molasses, 
An' butter their bread on both sides with 

The Masses, 
Half o' whom they 've persuaded, by way 

of a joke, 
Thet Washinton's mantelpiece fell upon 

Polk. 

Now all o' these blessin's the Wigs 

might enjoy, 
Ef they 'd gumption enough the right 

means to imploy ;* 
Fer the silver spoon born in Dermoc- 

racy's mouth 
Is a kind of a scringe thet they hev to 

the South ; 
Their masters can cuss 'em an' kick 'em 

an' wale 'em, 
An' they notice it less 'an the ass did to 

Balaam ; 
In this way they screw into second-rate 

offices 
Wich the slaveholder thinks 'ould sub- 

stract too much off his ease ; 
The file-leaders, I mean, du, fer they, by 

their wiles, 
Unlike the old viper, grow fat on their 

files. 
Wal, the Wigs hev been tryin' to grab 

all this prey frum 'em 
An' to hook this nice spoon o' good for- 

tin' away frum 'em, 
An' they might ha' succeeded, ez likely 

ez not, 
In lickin' the Demmercrats all round 

the lot, 
Ef it warn't thet, wile all faithful Wigs 

were their knees on, 
Some stuffy old codger would holler out, 

— "Treason ! 
You must keep a sharp eye on a dog thet 

h~r {bit you once, 
An' /-'"fit agoin' to cheat my constit- 

oounts," — 
Wen every fool knows thet a man repre- 
sents 
Not the fellers thet sent him, but them 

on the fence, — 
Impartially ready to jump either side 
An' make the fust use of a turn o' the 

tide, — 
The waiters on Providunce here in the 

city, 

* That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits 
our politicians without a wrinkle, — Magister 
ariis, ingeniique largitor venter. — H. W. 



Who compose wut they call a State Cen- 

terl Committy. 
Constitoounts air hendy to help a man in, 
But arterwards don't weigh the heft of a 

pin. 
Wy, the people can't all live on Uncle 

Sam's pus, 
So they 've nothin' to du with 't fer 

better or wus ; 
It 's the folks thet air kind o' brought 

up to depend on 't 
Thet hev any consarn in 't, an' thet is the 

end on 't. 

Now here w t uz New England ahevin' the 

honor 
Of a chance at the Speakership showered 

upon her ; — 
Do you say, — "She don't want no more 

Speakers, but fewer ; 
She 's hed plenty o' them, wut she wants 

is a doer " ? 
Fer the matter o' thet, it 's notorous in 

town 
Thet her own representatives du her 

quite brown. ^ 

But thet 's nothin' to du with it ; wut 

right hed Palfrey 
To mix himself up with fanatical small 

fr y ? 

Warn't we gittin' on prime with our hot 

an' cold blowin', 
Acondemnin' the w<ar wilst we kep' it 

agoin' ? 
We 'd assumed with gret skill a com- 

mandin' position, 
On this side or thet, no one could n't 

tell wich one, 
So, wutever side wipped, we 'd a chance 

at the plunder 
An' could sue fer infringin' our pay- 
tented thunder ; 
We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz 

eligible, 
Ef on all pints at issoo he 'd stay unim 

telligible. 
Wal, sposin' we hed to gulp down our 

perfessions, 
We were ready to come out next morn- 

in' with fresh ones ; 
Besides, ef we did, 't was our business 

alone, 
Fer could n't we du wut we would wuth 

our owm ? 
An'efaman can, wenpervisionshevrizso, 
Eat up his own words, it 's a marcy it 

is so. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



183 



Wy, these chaps frum the North, with 

baek-bones to 'era, darn 'em, 
'Ould be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom 

Thumb is to Barnum : 
Ther 's enough thet to office on this very 

plan grow, 
By exhibitin' how very small a man can 

grow ; 
But an M. C. frum here oilers hastens to 

state he 
Belongs to the order called invertebraty, 
IVence some gret filologists judge primy 

fashy 
Thet M. 0. is M. T. by paronomashy; 
An' these few exceptions air loosus nay- 

tury 
Folks 'ould put down their quarters to 

stare at, like fury. 

It 's no use to open the door o' success, 
Ef a member can bolt so fer nothin' or 

less ; 
Wy, all o' them grand constitootional 

pillers 
Our fore-fathers fetched with 'em over 

the billers, 
TOhem pillers the people so soundly hev 

slep' on, 
Wile to slav'ry, invasion, an' debt they 

were swep' on, 
Wile our Destiny higher an' higher kep' 

mountin' 
(Though I guess folks '11 stare wen she 

• hends her account in), 
Ef members in this way go kicken' agin 

'em, 
They wunt hev so much ez a feather left 

in 'em. 

An', ez fer this Palfrey,* we thought wen 

we 'd gut him in, 
He 'd go kindly in wutever harness we 

put him in ; 
Supposin' we did know thet he wuz a 

.peace man ? 
Doos he think he can be Uncle Sammle's 

policeman, 
An' wen Sam gits tipsy an' kicks up a 

riot, 
Lead him off to the lockup to snooze till 

he 's quiet ? 
Wy, the war is a war thet true paytriots 

can bear, ef 
It leads to the fat promised land of a 

tayriff ; 
* There is truth yet in this of Juvenal, — 
" Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas." 

H. W. I 



We don't go an' fight it, nor aint to be 

driv on, 
Nor Demmercrats nuther, thet hev wut 

to live on ; 
Ef it aint jest the thing thet 's well 

pleasin' to God, 
It makes us thought highly on else- 
where abroad ; 
The Rooshian black eagle looks blue in 

his eerie 
An' shakes both his heads wen he hears 

o' Monteery; 
In the Tower Victory sets, all of a flus- 
ter, 
An' reads, with locked doors, how we 

won Cherry Buster ; 
An' old Philip Lewis — thet come an' 

kep' school here 
Fer the mere sake o' scorin' his ryalist 

ruler 
On the tenderest part of our kings in 

ficturo — 
Hides his crown underneath an old shut 

in his bureau, 
Breaks off in his brags to a suckle o' 

merry kings, 
How he often hed hided young native 

Amerrikins, 
An' turnin' quite faint in the midst of 

his fooleries, 
Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front 

door o' the Tooleries.* 
You say, — " We 'd ha' scared 'em by 

growin' in peace, 
A plaguy sight more then by bobberies 

like these " ? 
Who is it dares say thet our naytional 

eagle 

* Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles 
besides those recorded in Holy Writ, and why 
not of other prophecies ? It is granting too 
much to Satan to suppose him, as divers of the 
learned have done, the inspirer of the ancient 
oracles. Wiser, I esteem it, to give n " ice the 
credit of the successful ones. W said 

here of Louis Philippe was rei some of 

its minute particulars within <* lew months' 
time. Enough to have made the fortune of 
Delphi or Hammon, and no thanks to Beelze- 
bub neither ! That of Seneca in Medea will 
suit here : — 

" Rapida fortuna ac levis 
Praecepsque regno eripuit, exsilio dedit." 

Let us allow, even to richly deserved misfor- 
tune, onr commiseration, and be not over-hasty 
meanwhile in our censure of the.French people, 
left for the first time to govern themselves, re- 
membering that wise sentence of ^Eschylus, — 



*A7ras Se Tpa^v? 6crri<; av viov Kpary. 



H. W. 



184 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Wun't much longer be classed with the 

birds thet air regal, 
Coz theirn be hooked beaks, an' she, 

arter this slaughter, 
'11 bring back a bill ten times longer 'n 

she ough' to " ? 
Wut 's your name ? Come, I see ye, you 

up-country feller, 
You 've put me out severil times with 

your beller ; 
Out with it ! Wut ? Biglow ? I say 

nothin' furder, 
Thet feller would like nothin' better 'n a 

murder ; 
He 's a traiter, blasphemer, an' wut 

ruther worse is, 
He puts all his ath'ism in dreffle bad 

verses ; 
Socity aint safe till sech monsters air out 

on it, 
Refer to the Post, ef you hev the least 

doubt on it; 
Wy, he goes agin war, agin indirect 

taxes, 
Agin sellin' wild lands 'cept to settlers 

with axes, 
Agin holdin' o' slaves, though he knows 

it 's the corner 
Our libbaty rests on, the mis'able 

scorner ! 
In short, he would wholly upset with 

his ravages 
All thet keeps us above the brute crit- 
ters an' savages, 
An' pitch into all kinds o' briles an' 

confusions 
The holl of our civilized, free institu- 
tions ; 
He writes fer thet ruther unsafe print, 

the Courier, 
An' likely ez not hez a squintin' to 

Foorier ; 
I '11 be , thet is, I mean I '11 be 

blest, 
Ef I hark to a word frum so noted a 

pest ; 
I sha' n't talk with him, my religion 's 

too fervent. — 
Good mornin', my friends, I 'm your 

most humble servant. 



[Into the question, whether the ability to ex- 
press ourselves in articulate language has been 
productive of more good or evil, I shall not here 
enter at large. The two faculties of speech and 
of speech-making are wholly diverse in their 
natures. By the first we make ourselves intel- 
ligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. 
It has not seldom occurred to me (noting how 



in our national legislature everything runs to 
talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be 
unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead 
of forming handsome heads) that Babel was 
the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for 
the manufacture of gabble. In these days, 
what with Town Meetings, School Committees, 
Boards (lumber) of one kind and another, Con- 
gresses, Parliaments, Diets, Indian Councils, 
Palavers, and the like, there is scarce a village 
which has not its factories of this description 
driven by (milk-and-) water power. I cannot 
conceive the confusion of tongues to have been 
the curse of Babel, since I esteem my ignorance 
of other languages as a kind of Martello-tower, 
in which I am safe from the furious bombard- 
ments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I 
have ever preferred the study of the dead lan- 
guages, those primitive formations being Ara- 
rats upon whose silent peaks I sit secure and 
watch this new deluge without fear, though it 
rain figures {simulacra, semblances) of speech 
forty days and nights together, as it not un- 
commonly happens. Thus is my coat, as it 
were, without buttons by which any but a ver- 
nacular wild bore can seize me. Is it not pos- 
sible that the Shakers may intend to convey a 
quiet reproof and hint, in fastening their outer 
garments with hooks and eyes? 

This reflection concerning Babel, which I 
find in no Commentary, was first thrown upon 
my mind when an excellent deacon of my con- 
gregation (being infected with the Second Ad- 
vent delusion) assured me that he had received* 
a first instalment of the gift of tongues as $6 
small earnest of larger possessions in the like 
kind to follow. For, of a truth, I could not 
reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice 
and mercy that the single wall which protected 
people of other languages from the incursions 
of this otherwise well-meaning propagandist 
should be broken down. 

In reading Congressional debates, I have fan- 
cied, that, after the subsidence of those painful 
buzzings in the brain which result from such 
exercises, I detected a slender residuum of val- 
uable information. I made the discovery that 
nothing takes longer in the saying than anything 
else, for as ex nihilo nihil fit, so from one poly- 
pus nothing any number of similar ones may be 
produced. I would recommend to the attention 
of viva voce debaters and controversialists the 
admirable example of the monk Copres, who, 
in the fourth century, stood for half an hour 
in the midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced 
a Manichsean antagonist who had less of the 
salamander in him. As for those who quarrel 
in print, I have no concern with them here, 
since the eyelids are a divinely granted shield 
against all such. Moreover, I have observed 
in many modem books that the printed portion 
is becoming gradually smaller, and the number 
of blank or fly-leaves" (as they are called) great- 
er. Should this fortunate tendency of litera- 
ture continue, books will grow more valuable 
from year to year, and the whole Serbonian bog 
yield to the advances of firm arable land. 

The sagacious Lacedaemonians hearing that 
Tesephone had bragged that he could talk all 
day long on any given subject, made no more 
ado, but forthwith banished him, whereby they 
supplied him a topic and at the same time took 
care that his experiment upon it should be tried 
out of ear-shot. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



185 



I have wondered, in the Representatives' 
Chamber of our own Commonwealth, to mark 
Low little impression seemed to be produced 
by that emblematic fish suspended over the 
heads of the members. Our wiser ancestors, 
no doubt, hung it there as being the animal 
which the Pythagoreans reverenced for its si- 
lence, and which certainly in that particular 
does not so well merit the epithet cold-Noocled, 
by which naturalists distinguish it, as certain 
bipeds, afflicted with ditch-water on the brain, 
who take occasion to tap themselves in Fan- 
euil Halls, meeting-houses, and other places of 
public resort. — H. W.] 



No. V. 
THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT. 

SOT TO A NUSRY RHYME. 

[The incident which gave rise to the debate 
satirized in the following verses was the un- 
successful attempt of Drayton and Sayres to 
give freedom to seventy men and women, fel- 
low-beings and fellow-Christians. Had Tripoli, 
instead of Washington, been the scene of this 
undertaking, the unhappy leaders in it would 
t>have been as secure of the theoretic as they 
pnow are of the practical part of martyrdom. I 
question whether the Dey of Tripoli is blessed 
with a District Attorney so benighted as ours 
at the seat of government. Very fitly is he 
named Key, who would allow himself to be 
made the instrument of locking the door of 
hope against sufferers in such a cause. Not all 
the waters of the ocean can cleanse the vile 
smutch of the jailer's fingers from off that little 
Key. Ahenea clavis, a brazen Key indeed ! 

Mr. Calhoun, who is made the chief speaker 
in this burlesque, seems to think that the light 
of the nineteenth century is to be put out as 
soon as he tinkles his little cow-bell curfew. 
Whenever slavery is touched, he sets up his 
scarecrow of dissolving the Union. This may 
do for the North, but I should conjecture that 
something more than a pumpkin-lantern is re- 
quired to scare manifest and irretrievable Des- 
tiny out of her path. Mr. Calhoun cannot let 
go the apron-string of the Past. The Past is a 
good nurse, but we must be weaned, from her 
sooner or later, even though, like Plotinus, we 
should run home from school to ask the breast, 
after we are tolerably well-grown youths. It 
will not do for us to hide our faces in her lap, 
whenever the strange Future holds out her 
arms and asks us to come to her. 

But we are all alike. We have all heard it 
said, often enough, that little boys must not 
play with fire ; and yet, if the matches betaken 
away from us, and put out of reach' upon the 
shelf, we must needs get into our little corner, 
and scowl and stamp and threaten the dins re- 
venge of going to bed without our supper. The 
world shall stop till we get our dangerous play- 
thing again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who has 
more than enough household matters to mind, 
goes bustling hither and thither as a hiss, or a 
sputter tells her that this or that kettle of hers 
is boiling over, and before bedtime we are glad 



to eat our porridge cold, and gulp down our 
dignity along with it. 

Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the name 
of a great statesman, and, if it be great states- 
manship to put lance in rest and run a tilt at 
the Spirit of the Age with the certainty of be- 
ing next moment hurled neck and heels into 
the dust amid universal laughter, he deserves 
the title. He is the Sir Kay of our modern 
chivalry. He should remember the old Scan- 
dinavian my thus. Thor was the strongest of 
gods, but he could not wrestle with Time, nor 
so much as lift up a fold of the great snake 
which knit the universe together ; and when 
he smote the Earth, though with his terrible 
mallet, it was but as if a leaf had fallen. Yet 
all the while it seemed to Thor that he had 
only been wrestling with an old woman, striv- 
ing to lift a cat, and striking a stupid giant on 
the head. 

And in old times, doubtless, the giants were 
stupid, and there was no better sport for the 
Sir Launcelots and Sir Gawains than to go 
about cutting off their great blundering heads 
with enchanted swords. But things have won- 
derfully changed. It is the giants, nowadays, 
that have the science and the intelligence, 
while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of Conserva- 
tism still cumber themselves with the clumsy 
armor of a bygone age. On whirls the restless 
globe through unsounded time, with its cities 
and its silences, its births and funerals, half 
light, half shade, but never wholly dark, and 
sure to swing round into the happy morning 
at last. With an involuntary smile, one sees 
Mr. Calhoun letting slip his pack-thread cable 
with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor 
South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the 
Past— H. W.] 



TO MR. BUCKENAM. 

MR. Editer, As i wuz kinder prunin 
round, in a little nussry sot out a year or 
2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit cum inter 
my mine An so i took & Sot it to writ I 
call a nussry rime. I hev made sum onna- 
ble Gentlenmn speak that dident speak in 
a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the seeson is 
dreffle backerd up This way 

ewers as ushul 

HOSEA BIGLOW. 

' 'Here we stan' on the Constitution, by- 
thunder ! 
It 's a fact o' wich ther 's bushils o' 
proofs ; 
Fer how could we trample on 't so, I 
wonder, 
Ef 't worn't thet it 's oilers under our 
hoofs ? " 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; 
"Human rights haint no more 
Right to come on this floor, . 
No more 'n the man in the moon," 
sez he. 



186 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



"The North haint no kind o' bisness 
with nothin', 
An' you 've no idee how much bother 
it saves ; 
We aint none riled by their frettin' an' 
fro thin', 
We 're used to layin' the string on our 
slaves," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
Sez Mister Foote, 
" I should like to shoot 
The holl gang, by the gret horn 
spoon ! " sez he. 

"Freedom's Keystone is Slavery, thet 
ther 's no doubt on, 
It 's sutthin' thet 's — wha' d' ye call 
it ? — divine, — 
An' the slaves thet we oilers make the 
most out on 
Air them north o' Mason an' Dixon's 
line," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
" Fer all thet," sez Mangum, 
" 'T would be better to hang 'em, 
An' so git red on 'em soon," sez he. 

* ' The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on 
sorties, 
Thet 's the reason I want to spread 
Freedom's aree ; 
It puts all the cunninest on us in office, 
An' reelises our Maker's orig'nal 
idee," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
"Thet 's ez plain," sez Cass, 
" Ez thet some one 's an ass, 
It 's ez clear ez the sun is at noon," 
sez he. 

" Now don't go to say I 'm the friend of 
oppression, 
But keep all your spare breath fer 
coolin' your broth, 
Fer I oilers hev strove (at least thet 's 
my impression) 
To make cussed free with the rights o' 
the North," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
"Yes," sez Davis o' Miss., 
" The perfection o' bliss 
Is in skinnin' thet same old coon," 
sez he. 

"Slavery 's a thing thet depends on 
complexion, 
It 's God's law thet fetters on black 
skins don't chafe; 



Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflec- 
tion !) 
Wich of our onnable body 'd be safe?" 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
Sez Mister Hannegan, 
Afore he began agin, 
' ' Thet exception is quite opper- 
toon," sez he. 

" Gen'nle Cass, Sir, you needn't be 
twitchin' your collar, 
Your merit 's quite clear by the dut 
on your knees, 
At the North we don't make no distinc- 
tions o' color ; 
You can all take a lick at our shoes 
wen you please," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
Sez Mister Jarnagin, 
" They wont hev to larn agin, 
They all on 'em know the old toon," 
sez he. 

' ' The slavery question aint no ways be- 
wilderin'. 
North an' South hev one int'rest, it 'afe 
plain to a glance ; 
No'thern men, like us patriarchs, don't 
sell their childrin, 
But they clu sell themselves, ef they 
git a good chance," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
Sez Atherton here, 
1 ' This is gittin' severe, 
I wish I could dive like a loon," sez 
he. 

" It '11 break up the Union, this talk 
about freedom, 
An' your fact'ry gals (soon ez we split) 
'11 make head, 
An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to 
lead 'em, 
'11 go to work raisin' promiscoous 
Ned," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
" Yes, the North," sez Colquitt, 
" Ef we Southeners all quit, 
Would go down like a busted bal- 
loon," sez he. 

"Jest look wilt is doin', wut annyky 's 
brewin' 
In the beautiful clime o' the olive an' 
vine, 
All the wise aristoxy 's a tumblin' to ruin, 
An' the sankylots drorin' an' drinkin' 
their wine," 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



187 



Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
" Yes," sez Johnson, "in France 
They 're beginnin' to dance 

Beelzebub's own rigadoon," sez he. 

" The South 's safe enough, it don't feel 
a mite skeery, 
Our slaves in their darkness an' dut 
air tu blest 
Not to welcome with proud hallylugers 
the ery 
Wen our eagle kicks yourn from the 
naytional nest," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
" 0," sez Westcott o' Florida, 
" Wut treason is horrider 
Then our priv'leges tryin' to proon ? " 
sez he. 

* ' It 's 'coz they 're so happy, thet, wen 
crazy sarpints 
Stick their nose in our bizness, we git 
so darned riled ; 
We think it 's our dooty to give pooty 
sharp hints, 
Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth 
sha' n't be spiled," 
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
" Ah," sez Dixon H. Lewis, 
" It perfectly true is 
Thet slavery 's airth 's grettest boon, " 
sez he. 

[It was said of old time, that riches have 
wings ; and, though this be not applicable in 
a literal strictness to the wealth of our patri- 
archal brethren of the South, yet it is clear that 
their possessions have legs, and an unaccount- 
able propensity for using' them in a northerly 
direction. I marvel that the grand jury of 
Washington did not find a true bill against the 
North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and 
Sayres. It would have been quite of a piece 
with the intelligence displayed by the South 
on other questions connected with slavery. I 
think that no ship of state was ever freighted 
with a more veritable Jonah than this same 
domestic institution of ours. Mephistopheles 
himself could not feign so bitterly, so satirically 
sad a sight as this of three millions of human 
beings crushed beyond help or hope by this 
one mighty argument, — Our fathers knew no 
better ! Nevertheless, it is the unavoidable des- 
tiny of Jonahs to be cast overboard sooner or 
later. Or shall we try the experiment of hid- 
ing our Jonah in a safe place, that none may 
lay hands on him to make jetsam of him ? Let 
us, then, with, equal forethought and wisdom, 
lash ourselves to the anchor, and await, in pious 
confidence, the certain result. Perhaps our 
suspicious passenger is no Jonah after all, be- 
ing black. For it is well known that a superin- 
tending Providence made a kind of sandwich 
of Ham and his descendants, to be devoured 
by the Caucasian race. 



In God's name, let all, who hear nearer and 
nearer the hungry moan of the storm and the 
growl of the breakers, speak out ! But, alas ! 
we have no right to interfere. If a man pluck 
an apple of mine, he shall be in danger of the 
justice ; but if he steal my brother, I must be 
silent. Who says this ? Our Constitution, con- 
secrated by the callous consuetude of sixty 
years, and grasped in triumphant argument by 
the left hand of him whose right hand clutches 
the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable with 
the unclethronable majesty of countless aeons, 
says, — Speak ! The Past, wise with the sor- 
rows and desolations of ages, from amid her 
shattered fanes and wolf-housing palaces, ech- 
oes, — Speak ! Nature, through her thousand 
trumpets of freedom, her stars, her sunrises, 
her seas, her winds, her cataracts, her moun- 
tains blue with cloudy pines, blows jubilant 
encouragement, and cries, — Speak! From 
the soul's trembling abysses the still, small 
voice not vaguely murmurs, — Speak! But, 
alas ! the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. 
Bagowind, M. C. , say — Be dumb 1 

It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of in- 
quiry in this connection, whether, on that mo- 
mentous occasion when the goats and the sheep 
shall be parted, the Constitution and the Hon- 
orable Mr, Bagowind, M. C, will be expected 
to take their places on the left as our hircine 
vicars. 

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus ? 

Quern patronmn rogaturus ? 

There is a point where toleration sinks into 
sheer baseness and poltroonery! The toleration 
of the worst leads us to look on what is barely 
better as good enough, and to worship what is 
only moderately go'od. Woe to that man, or 
that nation, to whom mediocrity has become an 
ideal ! 

Has our experiment of self-government suc- 
ceeded, if it barely manage fc> rub and go? 
Here, now, is a piece of barbarism which Christ 
and the nineteenth century say shall cease, and 
which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and others say 
shall not cease. I would by no means deny the 
eminent respectability of these gentlemen, but 
I confess, that, in such a wrestling-match, I 
cannot help having my fears for them. 

Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos. 

H. W.] 



No. VI. 
THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED. 

[At the special instance of Mr. Biglow, I 
jireface the following satire with an extract 
from a sermon preached during the past sum- 
mer, from Ezekiel xxxiv. 2: "Son of man, 
prophesy against the shepherds of Israel" 
Since the Sabbath on which this discourse was 
delivered, the editor of the " Jaalam Indepen- 
dent Blunderbuss " has unaccountably absented 
himself from our house of worship. 

"I know of no so responsible position as that 
of the public journalist. The editor of our day 
bears the same relation to his time that the 
clerk bore to the age before the invention of 



188 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



printing. Indeed, the position which he holds 
is that which the clergyman should hold even 
now. But the clergyman chooses to walk off to 
the extreme edge of the world, and to throw 
such seed as he has clear over into that dark- 
ness which he calls the Next Life. As if next 
did not mean nearest, and as if any life were 
nearer than that immediately present one which 
"boils and eddies all around him at the caucus, 
the ratification meeting, and the polls ! Who 
taught him to exhort men to prepare for eter- 
nity, as for some future era of which the pres- 
ent forms no integral part ? The furrow which 
Time is even now turning runs thr ugh the 
Everlasting, and in that must he plant, or no- 
where. Yet he would fain believe and teach 
that we are going to have more of eternity than 
we have now. This going of his is like that of 
the auctioneer, on which gone follows before we 
have made up our minds to bid, — in which 
manner, not three months back, I lost an ex- 
cellent copy of Chappelow on Job. So it has 
come to pass that the preacher, instead of be- 
ing a living force, has faded into an emblematic 
figure at christenings, weddings, and funerals. 
Or, if he exercise any other function, it is as 
keeper and feeder of certain theologic dogmas, 
which, when occasion offers, he unkennels with 
a staboy ! ' to bark and bite as 't is their nature 
to,' whence that reproach of odium theologicum 
has arisen. 

"Meanwhile, see what a pulpit the editor 
mounts daily, sometimes with a congregation 
of fifty thousand within reach of his voice, and 
never so much as a nodder, even, among them ! 
And from what a Bible can he choose his text, 
— a Bible which needs no translation, and 
which no priestcraft can shut and clasp from 
the laity, — the open volume of the world, upon 
which, with a pen of sunshine or destroying 
fire, the inspired Present is even now writing 
the annals of God ! Methinks the editor who 
should understand his calling, and be equal 
thereto, would truly deserve that title of Trot/arjv 
Aatov, which Homer bestows upon princes. He 
would be the Moses of our nineteenth century ; 
and whereas the old Sinai, silent now, is but a 
common mountain stared at by the elegant 
tourist and crawled over by the hammering 
geologist, he must find his tables of the new law 
here among factories and cities in this Wilder- 
ness of Sin (Numbers xxxiii. 12) called Progress 
of Civilization, and be the captain of our Exo- 
dus into the Canaan of a truer social order. 

"Nevertheless, our editor will not come so 
far within even the shadow of Sinai as Mahomet 
did, but chooses rather to construe Moses by 
Joe Smith. He takes up the crook, not that 
the sheep may be fed, but that he may never 
want a warm woollen suit and a joint of mut- 
ton. 

Immemor, 0, fidei, pecorumque oblite tuorum ! 

For which reason I would derive the name 
editor not so much from edo, to publish, as from 
edo, to eat, that being the peculiar profession 
to which he esteems himself called. He blows 
up the flames of political discord for no other 
occasion than that he may thereby handily boil 
his own pot. I believe there are two thousand 
of these mutton-loving shepherds in the United 
States, and of these, how many have even the 
dimmest perception of their immense power, 



and the duties consequent thereon ? Here and 
there, haply, one. Nine hundred and ninety- 
nine labor to impress upon the people the 
great principles of Tweedledum, and other nine 
hundred and ninety-nine preach with equal 
earnestness the gospel according to Tweedle- 
dee." — H. W.l 

I dv believe in Freedom's cause, 

Ez fur away ez Payris is ; 
I love to see her stick her claws 

In them infarnal Phayrisees ; 
It 's wal enough agin a king 

To dror resolves an' triggers, — 
But libbaty 's a kind o' thing 

Thet don't agree with niggers. 

I du believe the people want 

A tax on teas an' coffees, 
Thet nothin' aint extra vygunt, — 

Purvidin' I 'm in office ; 
Fer I hev loved my country sence 

My eye-teeth filled their sockets, 
An' Uncle Sam I reverence, 

Partic'larly his pockets. 

I du believe in any plan 

0' levyin' the taxes, 
Ez long ez, like a lumberman, 

I git jest wut I axes ; 
I go free -trade thru thick an' thin, 

Because it kind o' rouses 
The folks to vote, — an' keeps us in 

Our quiet custom-houses. 

I du believe it 's wise an' good 

To sen' out furrin missions, 
Thet is, on sartin understood 

An' orthydox conditions ; — 
I mean nine thousan' dolls, per ann., 

Nine thousan' more fer outfit, 
An' me to recommend a man 

The place 'ould jest about fit. 

I du believe in special ways 

0' prayin' an' convartin' ; 
The bread comes back in many days, 

An' buttered, tu, fer sartin ; 
I mean in prey in' till one busts 

On wut the party chooses, 
An' In convartin' public trusts 

To very privit uses. 

I du believe hard coin the stuff 
Fer 'lection eers to spout on ; 

The people 's oilers soft enough 
To make hard money out on ; 

Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his, 
An' gives a good-sized junk to all. — 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



189 



I don't care how hard money is, 
Ez long ez mine \s paid punctooal. 

I du believe with all my soul 

In the gret Press's freedom, 
To pint the people to the goal 

An' in the traces lead 'em ; 
Palsied the arm thet forges yokes 

At my fat contracts squintin', 
An' withered be the nose thet pokes 

Inter the gov'ment printin' ! 

I du believe thet I should give 

Wut 's his'n unto Caesar, 
Fer it 's by him I move an' live, 

Frum him my bread an' cheese air ; 
I du believe thet all o' me 

Doth bear his superscription, — 
Will, conscience, honor, honesty, 

An' things o' thet description. 

I du believe in prayer an' praise 

To him thet hez the grantin' 
0' jobs, — in every thin' thet pays, 

But most of all in Cantin' ; 
This doth my cup with marcies fill, 

This lays all thought o' sin to rest, — 
I dont believe in princerple, 

But 0, I du in interest. 

I du believe in bein' this 

Or thet, ez it may happen 
One way or t' other hendiest is 

To ketch the people nappin' ; 
It aint by princerples nor men 

My preudunt course is steadied, — 
I scent wich pays the best, an' then 

Go into it baldheaded. 

I du believe thet hoi din' slaves 

Comes nat'ral to a Presidunt, 
Let 'lone the rowdedow it saves 

To hev a wal-broke precedunt ; 
Fer any office, small or gret, 

I could n't ax with no face, 
Without I 'd ben, thru dry an' wet, 

Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface. 

I du believe wutever trash 

'11 keep the people in blindness, — 
Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash 

Ptight inter brotherly kindness, 
Thet bombshells, grape, an' powder 'n' 
ball 

Air good- will's strongest magnets, 
Thet peace, to make it stick at all, 

Must be druv in with bagnets. 



In short, I firmly du believe 

In Humbug generally, 
Fer it 's a thing thet I perceive 

To hev a solid vally ; 
This heth my faithful shepherd ben, 

In pasturs sweet heth led me, 
An' this '11 keep the people green 

To feed ez they hev fed me. 

[I subjoin here another passage from my 
before-mentioned discourse. 

" Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it 
rightly, is the newspaper. To me, for exam- 
ple, sitting on the critical front bench of the 
pit, in my study here in Jaalam, the advent 
of my weekly journal is as that of a strolling 
theatre, or rather of a puppet-show, on whose 
stage, narrow as it is, the tragedy, comedy, and 
farce of life are played in little. Behold the 
whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in 
a brown-paper wrapper ! 

"Hither, to my obscure corner, by wind or 
steam, on horseback or dromedary-back, in the 
pouch of the Indian runner, or clicking over 
the magnetic wires, troop all the famous per- 
formers from the four quarters of the globe. 
Looked at from a point of criticism, tiny pup- 
pets they seem all, as the editor sets up his 
booth upon my desk and officiates as showman. 
Now I can truly see how little and transitory 
is life. The earth appears almost as a drop of 
vinegar, on which the solar microscope of the 
imagination must be brought to bear in order 
to make out anything distinctly. That animal- 
cule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis Philippe, 
just landed on the coast of England That 
other, in the gray surtout and cocked hat, is 
Napoleon Bonaparte Smith, assuring France 
that she need apprehend no interference from 
him in the present alarming juncture. At that 
spot, where you seem to see a speck of some- 
thing in motion, is an immense mass-meeting. 
Look sharper, and you will see a mite bran- 
dishing his mandibles in an excited manner. 
That is the great Mr. Soandso, defining his po- 
sition amid tumultuous and irrepressible cheers. 
That infinitesimal creature, upon whom some 
score of others, as minute as he, are gazing in 
open-mouthed admiration, is a famous philoso- 
pher, expounding to a select audience their 
capacity for the Infinite. That scarce discern- 
ible puffiet of smoke and dust is a revolution. 
That speck there is a reformer, just arranging 
the lever with which he is to move the world. 
And lo, there creeps forward the shadow of a 
skeleton that blows one breath between its 
grinning teeth, and all our distinguished actors 
are whisked off the slippery stage into the dark 
Beyond. 

" Yes, the little show-box has its solemner 
suggestions. Now and then we catch a glimpse 
of a grim old man, who lays down a scythe and 
hour-glass in the corner while he shifts the 
scenes. There, too, in the dim background, a 
weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he 
leans upon his mattock, and gazes, as a coach 
whirls by, bearing the newly married on their 
wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe 
brought home from christening. Suddenly (for 
the scene grows larger and larger as we look) a 



190 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



bony hand snatches back a performer in the 
midst of his part, and him, whom yesterday 
two infinities (past and future) would not suf- 
fice, a handful of dust is enough to cover and 
silence forever. Nay, we see the same fleshless 
tinkers opening to clutch the showman himself, 
and guess, not without a shudder, that they are 
lying in wait . or spectator also. 

"Think of it : for three dollars a year I buy 
a season-ticket to this great Globe Theatre, for 
which God would write the dramas (only that 
we like farces, spectacles, and the tragedies of 
Apollyon better), whose scene-shifter is Time, 
and whose curtain is rung down by Death. 

" Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes 
as 1 am tearing off the wrapper of my news- 
paper. Then suddenly that otherwise too often 
vacant sheet becomes invested for me with a 
strange kind of awe. Look ! deaths and mar- 
riages, notices of inventions, discoveries, and 
books, lists of promotions, of killed, wounded, 
and missing, news of fires, accidents, of sudden 
wealth and as sudden poverty ; — I hold in my 
hand the ends of myriad invisible electric con- 
ductors, along which tremble the joys, sorrows, 
wrongs, triumphs, hopes, and despairs of as 
many men and women everywhere. So that 
upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate 
me from mankind as a spectator of their pup- 
pet-pranks, another supervenes, in which I 
feel that I, too, unknown and unheard of, am 
yet of some import to my fellows. For, through 
my newspaper here, do not families take pains 
to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death 
among them ? Are not here two who would 
have me know of their marriage? And, stran- 
gest of all, is not this singular person anxious to 
have me informed that he has received a fresh 
supply of Dimitry Bruisgins? But to none of 
us does the Present continue miraculous (even 
if for a moment discerned as such). We glance 
carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to 
Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, 
and to-morrow this sheet, in which a vision 
was let down to me from Heaven, shall be the 
wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a 
beggar's broken victuals." — H. W.] 



No. VII. 
A LETTER 

FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY 
IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS PRO- 
POSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, INCLOSED 
IN A NOTE FROM' MR. BIGLOW TO S. H. 
GAY, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL 
ANTISLAVERY STANDARD. 

[Curiosity may be said to be the quality 
which pre-eminently distinguishes and segre- 
gates man from the lower animals. As we trace 
the scale of animated nature downward, we 
find this faculty (as it may truly be called) of 
the mind diminished in the savage, and quite 
extinct in the brute. The first object which 
civilized man proposes to himself I take to be 
the findine out whatsoever he can concerning 
his neighbors. Nihil Immanum a me alienuiu 



puto ; I am curious about even John Smith. 
The desire next in strength to this (an oppo- 
site pole, indeed, of the same magnet) is that 
of communicating the unintelligence we have 
carefully picked up. 

Men in general may be divided into the in- 
quisitive and the communicative. To the 
first class belong Peeping Toms, eaves-drop- 
pers, navel-contemplating Brahmins, metaphy- 
sicians, travellers, Empedocleses, spies, the 
various societies for promoting Rhinothism, 
Columbuses, Yankees, discoverers, and men of 
science, who present themselves to the mind as 
so many marks of interrogation wandering up 
and down the world, or sitting in studies and 
laboratories. The second class I should again 
subdivide into four. In the first subdivision 
I would rank those who have an itch to tell 
us about themselves, — as keepers of diaries, 
insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, 
Horace Walpoles, autobiographers, poets. The 
second includes those who are anxious to im- 
part information concerning other people, — as 
historians, barbers, and such. To the third be- 
long those who labor to give us intelligence 
about nothing at all, — as novelists, political 
orators, the large majority of authors, preach- 
ers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth 
come those who are communicative from mo- 
tives of public benevolence, — as finders of 
mares'-nests and bringers of ill news. Each of 
us two-legged fowls without feathers embraces 
all these subdivisions in himself to a greater or 
less degree, for none of us so much as lays an 
egg, or incubates a chalk one, but straightway 
the whole barnyard shall know it by our cackle 
or our cluck. Omnibus hoc vitium est. There 
are different grades in all these classes. One 
will turn his telescope toward a back-yard, 
another toward Uranus ; one will tell you that 
he dined with Smith, another that he supped 
with Plato. In one particular, all men may be 
considered as belonging to the first grand divis- 
ion, inasmuch as they all seem equally desir- 
ous of discovering the mote in their neighbor's 
eye. 

To one or another of these species every hu- 
man being may safely be referred. I think it 
beyond a peradventure that Jonah prosecuted 
some inquiries into the digestive apparatus of 
whales, and that Noah sealed up a letter in 
an empty bottle, that news in regard to him 
might not be wanting in case of the worst. 
They had else been super or subter human. I 
conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons 
who continually peep and pry at the keyhole 
of that mysterious door through which, sooner 
or later, we all make our exits, so there are 
doubtless ghosts fidgeting and fretting on the 
other side of it, because they have no means of 
conveying back to this world the scraps of 
news they have p *red up in that. For there 
is an answer rea newhere to every ques- 

tion, the great L ai of give and take runs 
through all nature, and if we see a hook, we 
may be sure that an eye is waiting for it. I 
read in every face I meet a standing advertise- 
ment of information wanted in regard to A. B., 
or that the friends of C. D. can hear something 
to his disadvantage by application to such a 
one. 

It was to gratify the two great passions of 
asking and answering that epistolary corre- 
spondence was first invented. Letters (for by 



THE BIG LOW FA PEES. 



191 



this usurped title epistles are now commonly 
known) are of several kinds. First, there are 
those which are not letters' at all, — as letters- 
patent, letters dimissory, letters enclosing 
bills, letters of administration, Pliny's letters, 
letters of diplomacy, of Cato, of Mentor, of 
Lords Lyttelton. Chesterfield, and Orrery, of 
Jacob Behmen, Seneca (whom St. Jerome in- 
cludes in his list of sacred writers), letters from 
abroad, from sons in college to their fathers, 
letters of marque, and letters generally, which 
are in no wise letters of mark. Second, are 
real letters, such as those of Graj*, Cowper, 
Walpole, Howell, Lamb, D. Y., the first letters 
from children (printed in staggering capitals), 
Letters from New York, letters of credit, and 
others, interesting for the sake of the writer 
or the thing written. I have read also letters 
from Europe by a gentleman named Pinto, con- 
taining some curious gossip, and which I hope 
to see collected for the benefit of the curious. 
There are, besides, letters addressed to pos- 
terity, — as epitaphs, for example, written for 
their own monuments by monarchs, whereby 
we have lately become possessed of the names 
of several great conquerors and kings of kings, 
hitherto unheard of and still unpronounceable, 
but valuable to the student of the entirely dark 
ages. The letter which St. Peter sent to King- 
Pepin in the year of grace 755, that of the Vir- 
gin to the magistrates of Messina, that of St. 
Gregory Thaumaturgus to the D — 1, and that of 
this last-mentioned active police-magistrate to 
a nun of Girgenti, I would place in a class by 
themselves, as also the letters of candidates, 
concerning which I shall dilate more fully in 
a note at the end of the following poem. At 
present, sat prata biberunt. Only, concerning 
the shape of letters, they are all either square 
or oblong, to which general figures circular 
letters and round-robins also conform them- 
selves. — H. W. 1 

Deer sir its gut to be the fashun now 
to rite letters to the candid 8s and i wus 
chose at a publick Meetin in Jaalam to du 
wut wus nessary fur that town, i writ to 
271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha 
air called candid 8s but I don't see nothin 
candid about 'em. this here 1 wich I 
send wus thought satty's factory. I dunno 
as it 's ushle to print Poscrips, but as all 
the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it 
wus best. times has gretly changed. 
Formaly to knock a man into a cocked hat 
wus to use him up, but now it ony gives 
him a chance fur the cheef madgustracy. 
— H. B. 

Dear Sir, — Yc ih to know my 

notions 
On sartin pints thet rile the land ; 
There 's nothin' thet my natur so 
shuns 
Ez bein' mum or underhand ; 
I 'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur 
Thet blurts right out wut's in his 
head, 



An ef I 've one pecooler feetnr, 
It is a nose thet wunt be led. 

So, to begin at the beginnin' 

An' come direcly to the pint, 
I think the country 's underpinnin' 

Is some consid'ble out o' jint ; 
I aint agoin' to try your patience 

By tellin' who done this or thet, 
I don't make no insinooations, 

I jest let on I smell a rat. 

Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so, 

But, ef the public think I 'm wrong, 
I wunt deny but wut I be so, — 

An', fact, it don't smell very strong; 
My mind 's tu fair to lose its balance 

An' say wich party hez most sense ; 
There may be folks o' greater talence 

Thet can't set stiddier on the fence. 

I 'm an eclectic ; ez to choosin' 

'Twixt this an' thet, I 'm plaguy 
law th ; 
I leave a side thet looks like losin', 
But (wile there r s doubt) I stick to 
both; 
I stan' upon the Constitution, 

Ez preudunt statesmun say, who 've 
planned 
A way to git the most profusion 

0' chances ez to -ware they '11 stand. 

Ez fer the war, I go agin it, — 

I mean to say I kind o' du, — 
Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it, 

The best way wuz to fight it thru ; 
Not but wut abstract war is horrid, 

I sign to thet with all my heart, — 
But civlyzation doos git forrid 

Sometimes upon a powder-cart. 

About thet darned Proviso matter 

I never hed a grain o' doubt, 
Nor I aint one my sense to scatter 

So \st no one could n't pick it out ; 
My love fer North an' South is equil, 

So I '11 jest answer plump an' frank, 
No matter wut may be the sequil, — 

Yes, Sir, I am agin a Bank. 

Ez to the answerin' o' questions, 

I 'm an oif ox at bein' druv, 
Though I aint one thet ary test shuns 

'11 give our folks a helpin' shove ; 
Kind o' promiscoous I go it 

Fer the holl country,'" an' the ground 



192 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



I take, ez nigh ez I can show it, 
Is pooty gen'ally all round. 

I don't appruve o' givin' pledges ; 

You 'd ough' to leave a feller free, 
An' not go knockin' out the wedges 

To ketch his fingers in the tree ; 
Pledges air awfle breach y cattle 

Thet preudunt farmers don't turn 
out, — 
Ez long 'z the people git their rattle, 

Wut is there fer 'm to grout about ? 

Ez to the slaves, there 's no confusion 

In my idees consarnin' them, — 
J think they air an Institution, 

A sort of — yes, jest so, — ahem : 
Do / own any ? Of my merit 

On thet pint you yourself may jedge ; 
All is, I never drink no sperit, 

Nor I haint never signed no pledge. 

Ez to my princerples, I glory 

In hevin' nothin' o' the sort ; 
I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory, 

I 'm jest a candidate, in short ; 
Thet 's fair an' square an' parpendicler, 

But, ef the Public cares a fig 
To hev me an' thin' in particler, 

Wy, I 'in a kind o' peri-Wig. 

P. S. 

-Ez we 're a sort o' privateerin', 

0' course, you know, it 's sheer an' 
sheer, 
An' there is sutthin' wuth your hearin' 

I '11 mention in your privit ear ; 
Gf you git me inside the White House, 

Your head with ile I '11 kin' o' 'nint 
By gittin' you inside the Light-house 

Down to the eend o' Jaalam Pint. 

An' ez the North hez took to brastlin' 

At bein' scrouged frum off the roost, 
I '11 tell ye wut '11 save all tusslin' 

An' give our side a harnsome boost, — 
Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question 

I 'm right, although to speak I 'm 
lawth ; 
This gives you a safe pint to rest on, 

An' leaves me frontin' South by 
North. 

[And now of epistles candidatial, which are 
of two kinds, — namely, letters of acceptance, 
and letters definitive of position. Our repub- 
lic, on the eve of an election, may safely enough 



be called a republic of letters. Epistolary 
composition becomes then an epidemic, which 
seizes one candidate after another, not seldom 
cutting short the thread of political life. It 
has come to such a pass, that a party dreads 
less the attacks of its opponents than a letter 
from its candidate. Litera scripta manet, and 
it will go hard if something bad cannot be made 
of it. General Harrison, it is well understood, 
was surrounded, during his candidacy, with the 
cordon sanitaire of a vigilance committee. No 
prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously 
deprived of writing materials. The soot was 
scraped carefully from the chimney-places ; out- 
posts of expert rifle-shooters rendered it sure 
death for any goose (who came clad in feathers) 
to approach within a certain limited distance 
of North Bend ; and all domestic fowls about 
the premises were reduced to the condition of 
Plato's original man. By these precautions 
the General was saved. Parva componere mag- 
nis, I remember, that, when party-spirit once 
ran high among my people, upon occasion of 
the choice of a new deacon, I, having my pref- 
erences, yet not caring too openly to express 
them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring 
about that result which I deemed most desira- 
ble. My stratagem was no other than the 
throwing a copy of the Complete Letter-Writer 
in the way of the candidate whom I wished to 
defeat. He caught the infection, and addressed 
a short note to his constituents, in which the 
opposite party detected so many and so grave 
improprieties (he had modelled it upon the 
letter of a young lady accepting a proposal of 
marriage), that he not only lost his election, but, 
falling under a suspicion of Sabellianism and I 
know not what (the widow Endive assured me 
that he was a Paralipomenon, to her certain 
knowledge), was forced to leave the town. 
Thus it is that the letter killeth. 

The object which candidates propose to 
themselves in writing is to convey no meaning 
at all. And here is a quite unsuspected pitfall 
into which they successively plunge headlong. 
For it is precisely in such cryptographies that 
mankind are prone to seek for and find a won- 
derful amount and variety of significance. 
Omne ignotum pro mirifico. How do we admire 
at the antique world striving to crack those 
oracular nuts from Delphi, Hammon, and else- 
where, in only one of which can I so much as 
surmise that any kernel had ever lodged ; that, 
namely, wherein Apollo confessed that he was 
mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, related to 
have written six thousand books on the single 
subject of grammar, a topic rendered only more 
tenebrific by the labors of his successors, and 
which seems still to possess an attraction for au- 
thors in proportion as they can make nothing of 
it. A singular loadstone for theologians, also, 
is the Beast in the Apocalypse, whereof, in the 
course of my studies, I have noted two hun- 
dred and three several interpretations, each 
lethiferal to all the rest. Non nostrum est tan- 
tas componere lites, yet I have myself ventured 
upon a two hundred and fourth, which I em- 
bodied in a discourse preached on occasion of 
the demise of the late usurper, Napoleon Bona- 
parte, and which quieted, in a large measure, 
the minds of my people. It is true that my 
views on this important point were ardently 
controverted by Mr. Shearjashub Holden, the 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



193 



then preceptor of our academy, and in other 
particulars a very deserving and sensible 
young man, though possessing a somewhat 
limited knowledge of the Greek tongue. But 
his heresy struck down no deep root, and, he 
having been lately removed by the hand of 
Providence, 1 had the satisfaction of reaffirm- 
ing my cherished sentiments in a sermon 
preached upon the Lord's day immediately suc- 
ceeding his funeral. This might seem like tak- 
ing an unfair advantage, did I not add that he 
had made provision in his last will (being celi- 
bate) for the publication or a posthumous trac- 
tate in support of his own dangerous opinions. 
I know of nothing in our modern times which 
approaches so nearly to the ancient oracle as 
the letter of a Presidential candidate. Now, 
among the Greeks, the eating of beans was 
strictly forbidden to all such as had it in mind 
to consult those expert amphibologists, and 
this same prohibition on the part of Pythag- 
oras to his disciples is understood to imply 
an abstinence from politics, beans having been 
used as ballots. That other explication, quod 
videlicet sensus eo cibo obtundi existimaret, 
though supported jmgnis et colcibus by many 
of the learned, and not wanting the counte- 
nance of Cicero, is confuted by the larger expe- 
rience of New England. On the whole, I think 
it safer to apply here the rule of interpretation 
which now generally obtains in regard to an- 
tique cosmogonies, myths, fables, proverbial 
expressions, and knotty points generally, which 
is, to tind a common-sense meaning, and then 
select whatever can be imagined the most oppo- 
site thereto. In this way we arrive at the con- 
clusion, that the Greeks objected to the ques- 
tioning of candidates. Ami very properly, if, 
as I conceive, the chief point be not to dis- 
cover what a person in that position is, or what 
he will do, but whether he can be elected. Vos 
exemplaria Grceca noctuma versatemanu, versate 
duirna. 

But, since an imitation of the Greeks in 
this particular (the asking of questions being 
one chief privilege of freemen) is hardly to be 
hoped for, and our candidates will answer, 
whether they are questioned or not, I would 
recommend that these ante-electionary dia- 
logues should be carried on by symbols, as 
were the diplomatic correspondences of the 
Scythians and Macrobii, or confined to the lan- 
guage of signs, like the famous interview of 
Panurge and Goatsnose. A candidate might 
then convey a suitable reply to all committees 
of inquiry by closing one eye, or by presenting 
them with a phial of Egyptian darkness to be 
speculated upon by their respective constituen- 
cies. These answers would be susceptible of 
whatever retrospective construction the exi- 
gencies of the political campaign might seem 
to demand, and the candidate could take his 
position on either side of the fence with entire 
consistency. Or, if letters must be written, 
profitable use might be made of the Dighton 
rock hieroglyphic or the cuneiform script, 
every fresh decipherer of which is enabled to 
educe a different meaning, whereby a sculp- 
tured stone or two supplies us, and will prob- 
ably continue to supply posterity, with a very 
vast and various body of authentic history. 
For even the briefest epistle in the ordinary 
chirography is dangerous. There is scarce any 

13 



style so compressed that superfluous words 
may not be detected in it. A severe critic 
might curtail that famous brevity of Csesar's by 
two thirds, drawing his pen through the super- 
erogatory veni and vidi. Perhaps, after all, 
the surest footing of hope is to be found in the 
rapidly increasing tendency to demand less and 
less of qualification in candidates. Already 
have statesmanship, experience, and the pos- 
session (nay, the profession, even) of principles 
been rejected as superfluous, and may not the 
patriot reasonably hope that the ability to write 
will follow ? At present, there may be death 
in pot-hooks as well as pots, the loop of a let- 
ter may suffice for a bow-string, and all the 
dreadful heresies of Antislavery may lurk in a 
flourish. — H. W.] 



No. VIII. 

A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ. 

[In the following epistle, we behold Mr. 
Sawin returning, a miles emeritus, to the bosom 
of his family. Quantum mutatus ! The good 
Father of us all had doubtless intrusted to the 
keeping of this child of his certain faculties of 
a constructive kind. He had put in him a 
share of that vital force, the nicest economy 
of every minute atom of which is necessary 
to the perfect development of Humanity. He 
had given him a brain and heart, and so had 
equipped his soul with the two strong wings of 
knowledge and love, whereby it can mount to 
hang its nest under the eaves of heaven. And 
this child, so dowered, he had 'ntrusted to the 
keeping of his vicar, the Staid. How stands 
the account of that stewardship ? The State, 
or Society (call her by what name you will), 
had taken no manner of thought of him till she 
saw him swept out into the street, the pitiful 
leavings of last night's debauch, with cigar- 
ends, lemon-parings, tobacco-quids, slops, vile 
stenches, and the whole loathsome next-morn- 
ing of the bar-room, — an own child of the 
Almighty God ! I remember him as he was 
brought to be christened, a ruddy, rugged 
babe ; and now there he wallows, reeking, 
seething, — the dead corpse, not of a man, but 
of a soul, — a putrefying lump, horrible for the 
life that is in it. Comes the wind of heaven, 
that good Samaritan, and parts the hair upon 
his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss those 
parched, cracked lips ; the morning opens upon 
him her eyes full of pitying sunshine, the sky 
yearns down to him, — and there he lies fer- 
menting. O sleep ! let me not profane thy holy 
name by calling that stertorous unconscious- 
ness a slumber ! By and by comes along tho 
State, God's vicar. Does she say, — " My poor, 
forlorn foster-child ! Behold here a force 
which I will make dig and plant and build for 
me " ? Not so, but, — " Here is a recruit ready- 
made to my hand, a piece of destroying energy 
lying unprofitably idle." So she claps an ugly 
gray suit on him, puts a musket in his grasp, 
and sends him off, with Gubernatorial and 
other godspeeds, to do duty as a destroyer. 

I made one of the crowd at the last Mechan- 



194 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



ics' Fair, and, with the rest, stood gazing in 
wonder at a perfect machine, with its soul of 
fire, its boiler-heart that sent the hot blood 
pulsing along the iron arteries, and its thews of 
steel. And while I was admiring the adapta- 
tion of means to end, the harmonious involu- 
tions of contrivance, and the never-bewildered 
complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, 
the imperious engine's lackey and drudge, 
whose sole office was to let fall, at intervals, a 
drop or two of oil upon a certain. joint. Then 
my soul said within me, See there a piece of 
mechanism to which that other you marvel at 
is but as the rude first effort of a child, — a 
force which not merely suffices to set a few 
wheels in motion, but which can send an im- 
pulse all through the infinite future, — a con- 
trivance, not tor turning out pins, or stitching 
buttonholes, but for making Hamlets and 
Lears. And yet this thing of iron shall be 
housed, waited on, guarded from rust and dust, 
and it shall be a crime but so much as to 
scratch it with a pin ; while the other, with its 
fire of God in it, shall be buffeted hither and 
thither, and finally sent carefully a thousand 
miles to be the target for a Mexican cannou- 
ball. Unthrifty Mother State! My heart 
burned within me for pity and indignation, and 
I renewed this covenant with my own soul, — 
In aliis mansuetus ero, at, in blasf)hemiis con- 
tra Christum, non ita. — H. W.] 

I spose you wonder ware I be ; I can't 

tell, fer the soul o' me, 
Exacly ware I be myself, — mean in' by 

thet the holl o' me. 
Wen I left hum, I lied two legs, an' they 

worn't bad ones neither, 
(The scaliest trick they ever played wuz 

bringin' on me hither,) 
Now one on 'em 's I dunno ware ; — 

they thought I wuz adyin', 
An' sawed it off because they said 't wuz 

kin' p' mortify in' ; 
I 'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I 

don't see, nuther, 
Wy one shoud take to feelin' cheap a 

minnit sooner 'n t' other, 
Sence both wuz equilly to blame ; but 

things is ez they be ; 
It took on so they took it off, an' thet 's 

enough fer me : 
There 's one good thing, though, to be 

said about my wooden new one, — 
The liquor can't git into it ez 't used to 

in the true one ; 
So it saves drink ; an' theu, besides, a 

feller could n't beg 
A gretter blessin' then to hev one oilers 

sober peg ; 
It 's true a chap 's in want o' two fer fol- 

lerin' a drum, 
But all the march V m up to now is jest 

to Kingdom Come. 



1 've lost one eye, but thet 's a loss it 's 

easy to supply 
Out o' the glory that I 've gut, fer thet 

is all my eye ; 
An' one is big enough, I guess, by dili- 
gently usin' it, 
To see all I shall ever git by way o' pay 

fer losin' it ; 
Off'cers I notice, who git paid fer all 

our thumps an' kickins, 
Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the 

fattest pickins ; 
So, ez the eye 's put fairly out, I '11 lam 

to go without it, 
An' not allow myself to be no gret put 

out about it. 
Now, le' me see, thet is n't all ; I used, 

'fore leavin' Jaalam, 
To count things on my finger-eends, but 

sutthin' seems to ail 'em : 
Ware 's my left hand ? 0, darn it, yes, 

I recollect wut 's come on 't ; 
I haint no left arm but my right, an' 

thet 's gut jest a thumb on 't ; 
It aint so hendy ez it wuz to cal'late a 

sum on 't. 
I 'vehed some ribs broke, — six (I bl'ieve), 

— I haint kep' no account on 'em ; 
Wen pensions git to be the talk, I '11 

settle the amount on 'em. 
An' now I'm speak in' about ribs, it kin' 

o' brings to mind 
One thet I could n't never break, — the 

one I let" behind ; 
Ef you should see her, jest clear out the 

spout o' your invention 
An' pour the longest sweetnin' in about 

an annooal pension, 
An' kin' o' hint (in case, you know, the 

critter should refuse to be 
Consoled) I aint so 'xpensive now to keep 

ez wut I used to be ; 
There 's one arm less, ditto one eye, an' 

then the leg thet 's wooden 
Can be took off an' sot away wenever 

ther 's a puddin'. 

I spose you think I'm comin' back ez 

opperlunt ez thunder, • 
With shiploads o' gold images an' varus 

sorts o' plunder ; 
Wal, 'fore I vullinteered, I thought this 

country wuz a sort o' 
Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land rlowin' 

with rum an' water, 
Ware propaty growed up like time, 

without no cultivation. 



THE BIGLOAV PAPERS. 



195 



An' gold wuz dug ez taters be among our 

Yankee nation, 
Ware nateral advantages were pufficly 

amazin', 
"Ware every rock there wuz about with 

precious stuns wuz blazin', 
Ware mill-sites tilled the country up ez 

thick ez you could cram em' 
An' desptit rivers run about a beggin' 

' folks to dam 'em ; 
Then there were meetinhouses, to, 

chock ful o' gold an' silver 
Thet you could take, an' no one could n't 

hand ye in no bill fer ; — 
Thet 's wut I thought afore I went, 

thet 's wut them fellers told us 
Thet stayed to hum an' speechified an' 

to the buzzards sold us ; 
I thought thet gold-mines could be gut 

cheaper than Chiny asters, 
An' see myself acomin' back like sixty 

Jacob Astors ; 
But sech idees soon melted down an' 

did n't leave a grease-spot ; 
I vow my holl sheer o' the spiles would n't 

come nigh a V spot ; 
Although, most any wares we 've ben, 

you need n't break no locks, 
Nor run no kin' o' risks, to fill your 

pocket full o' rocks. 
I 'xpect I mentioned in my last some o' 

the nateral feeturs 
0' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way 

o' aw fie creeturs, 
But I fergut to name (new things to 

speak on so abounded) 
How one day you '11 most die o' thust, 

an' 'fore the next git drownded. 
The clymit seems to me jest like a tea- 
pot made o' pewter 
Our Prudence hed, thet would n't pour 

(all she could du) to suit her ; 
Fust place the leaves 'ould choke the 

spout, so 's not a drop 'ould dreen 

out, 
Then Prude 'ould tip an' tip an' tip, till 

the holl kit bust clean out, 
The kiver-hinge-pin bein' lost, tea-leaves 

an' tea an' kiver 
'ould all come down kerswosh ! ez though 

the dam broke in a river. 
Jest so 't is here ; holl months there 

aint a day o' rainy weather, 
An' jest ez th' officers 'ould be a layin' 

heads together 
Ez t' how they 'd mix their drink at sech 

a milingtary deepot, — 



'T would pour ez though the lid wuz off 

the everlastin' teapot. 
The cons' quenee is, thet I shall take, 

wen I 'm allowed to leave here, 
One piece o' propaty along, an' thet's 

the shakin' fever ; 
It 's reggilar employment, though, an' 

thet aint thought to harm one, 
Nor 't aint so tiresome ez it wuz with 

t' other leg an' arm on ; 
An' it 's a consolation, tu, although it 

doos n't pay, 
To hev it said you 're some gret shakes 

in any kin' o' way. 
'T worn't very long, I tell ye wut, I 

thought o' fortin-makin', — 
One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' 

next ez good ez bakinV — 
One day abrilin' in the sand, then 

smoth'rin' in the mashes, — 
Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess 

o' hacks an' smashes. 
But then, thinks I, at any rate there 's 

glory to be hed, — 
Thet's an investment, arter all, thet 

may n't turn out so bad ; 
But somehow, wen we 'd fit an' licked, 

I oilers found the thanks 
Gut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez 

low down ez the ranks ; 
The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the 

Cunnles next, an' so on, — 
We never gut a blasted mite o' glory ez 

I know on ; 
An' spose we hed, I wonder how you 're 

goin' to contrive its 
Division so 's to give a piece to twenty 

thousand privits ; 
Ef 3^ou should multiply by ten the por- 
tion o' the brav'st one, 
You would n't git more 'n half enough to 

speak of on a grave-stun ; 
We git the licks, — we 're jest the grist 

thet 's put into War's hoppers ; 
Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps 

pick up the coppers. 
It may suit folks thet go agin a body 

with a soul in 't, 
An' aint contented with a hide without 

a bagnet hole in 't ; 
But glory is a kin' o' thing / sha' n't 

pursue no furder, 
Coz thet 's the ofFcers parquisite, — 

yourn 's on'y jest the murder. 

Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at 
least there 's one 



19G 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Thing in the bills we aint hed yit, an' 

thet's the glorious fun ; 
Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may 

per sum e we 
All day an' night shall revel in the halls 

o' Montezumy. 
I '11 tell ye wut my revels wuz, an' see 

how you would like 'em ; 
We never gut inside the hall : the nigh- 

est ever / come 
Wuz stan' in' sentry in the sun (an', fact, 

it seemed a cent'ry) 
A ketchin' smells o' biled an' roast thet 

come out thru the entry, 
An' hearin' ez I sweltered thru my 

• passes an' repasses, 
A rat-tat-too o' knives an' forks, a 

clinkty-clink o' glasses : 
I can't tell off the bill o' fare the Gin- 

rals hed inside ; 
All I know is, thet out o' doors a pair 

o' soles wuz fried, 
An' not a hunderd miles away fruin 

ware this child wuz posted, 
A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an' 

biled an' roasted ; 
The on'y thing like revellin' thet ever 

come to me 
Wuz bein' routed out o' sleep by thet 

darned revelee. 

They say the quarrel \s settled now ; fer 
my part I 've some doubt on 't, 

't '11 take more fish -skin than folks think 
to take the rile clean out on 't; 

At any rate I 'm so used up I can't do 
no more fightin', 

The on'y chance thet 's left to me is pol- 
itics or writin' ; 

Now, ez the people 's gut to hev a mil- 
ingtary man, 

An' I aint nothin' else jest now, I 've hit 
upon a plan ; 

The can'idatin' line, you know, 'ould 
suit me to a T, 

An' ef I lose, 't wunt hurt my ears to 
lodge another flea ; 

So I '11 set up ez can'idate fer any kin' 
o' office, 

(I mean fer any thet includes good easy- 
cheers an' soffies ; 

Fer ez tu runnin' fer a place ware work 's 
the time o' day, 

You know thet 's wut I never did, — 
except the other way;) 

Ef it 's the Presidential cheer fer wich 
I 'd better run, 



Wut two legs anywares about could keep 

up with my one ? 
There aint no kin' o' quality in can'i- 

dates, it 's said, 
So useful ez a wooden leg, — except a 

wooden head ; 
There 's nothin' aint so poppylar — (wy, 

it 's a parfect sin 
To think wut Mexico hez paid fer Santy 

Anny's pin ;) — 
Then 1 haint gut no princerples, an', 

sence 1 wuz knee-high, 
1 never did hev any gret, ez you can 

testify; 
1 'm a decided peace-man, tu, an' go 

agin the war, — 
Fer now the holl on 't 's gone an' past, 

wut is there to go for ? 
Ef, wile you 're 'lectioneerin' round, 

some eurus chaps should beg 
To know my views o' state affairs, jest 

answer wooden leg ! 
Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' 

o' pry an' douot 
An' ax fer sutthin' deffynit, jest say 

ONE EYE PUT OUT ! 

Thet kin' o' talk 1 guess you '11 find '11 

answer to a charm, 
An' wen you 're druv tu nigh the wall, 

hoi' up my missin' arm ; 
Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, 

put on a vartoous look 
An' tell 'em thet 's percisely wut I never 

gin nor — took ! 

Then you can call me " Timbertoes," — 

thet 's wut the people likes ; 
Sutthin' combinin' morril truth with 

phrases sech ez strikes ; 
Some say the people 's fond o' this, or 

thet, or wut you please, — 
I tell ye wut the people want is jest cor- 
rect idees ; 
"Old Timbertoes," you see, 's a creed 

it 's safe to be quite bold on, 
There 's nothin' in 't the other side can 

any ways git hold on ; 
It 's a good tangible idee, a sutthin' to 

embody 
Thet valooable class o' men who look 

thru brandy-toddy; 
It gives a Party Platform, tu, jest level 

with the mind 
Of all right-thinkin', honest folks thet 

mean to go it blind ; 
Then there air other good hooraws to 

dror on ez you need 'em, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



197 



Sech ez the one-eyed Slarterek, the 

BLOODY BlRDOFREDTJM : 

Them 's wilt takes hold o' folks thet 
think, ez well ez o' the masses, 

An' makes you sartin o' the aid o' good 
men of all classes. 

There 's one thing I 'm in doubt about ; 

in order to be Presidunt, 
It 's absolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern 

residunt ; 
The Constitution settles thet, an' also 

thet a feller 
Must own a nigger o' some sort, jet black, 

or brown, or yeller. 
Now I haint no objections agin particklar 

climes, 
Nor agin ownin' anythin' (except the 

truth sometimes), 
But, ez I haint no capital, up there 

among ye, maybe, 
You might raise funds enough fer me to 

buy a low-priced baby, 
An' then to suit the No'thern folks, who 

feel obleeged to say 
They hate an' cuss the very thing they 

vote fer every day, 
Say you 're assured I go full butt fer 

Libbaty's diffusion 
An' made the purchis on'y jest to spite 

the Institootion ; — 
But, golly ! there 's the currier's hoss 

upon the pavement pawin' ! 
I '11 be more 'xplicit in my next. 
Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. 



[We have now a tolerably fair chance of es- 
timating how the balance-sheet stands between 
our returned volunteer and glory. Supposing 
the entries to be set down on both sides of the 
account in fractional parts of one hundred, we 
shall arrive at something like the following re- 
sult : — 



B. Sawin, Esq., in account with (Blank) 

Glory. 

Or. Br. 

By loss of one leg, 20 To one 675th three 
cheers in Fan- 



do. one arm, 15 
do. four fingers, 5 
do. one eye . . 10 
the breaking of 

six ribs, . . 6 
having served 
under Colonel 
Cushing one 
month, ... 44 



100 



euil Hall, . . 30 
do. -do. on occa- 
sion of presenta- 
tion of sword to 
Colonel Wright, 25 
' one suit of gray 
clothes (ingen- 
iously unbecom- 
ing) .... 15 

70 



Or. Dr. 

Brought forward 100 Brought forward 70 
To musical enter- 
tainments (drum 
and fife six 
months), ... 5 
■' one dinner after 

return .... 1 
" chance of pen- 
sion, .... 1 
" privilege of 

drawing long- 
bow during rest 
of natural life, 23 



E. E. 



100 



100 



It would appear that Mr. Sawin found the 
actual feast curiously the reverse of the bill 
of fare advertised in Faneuil Hall and other 
places. His primary object seems to have 
been the making of his fortune. , Qucerenda 
pecunia primum, virtus post nummos. He 
hoisted sail for Eldorado, and shipwrecked on 
Point Tribulation. Quid non mortalia pectora 
cogis, auri sacra fames ? The speculation has 
sometimes crossed my mind, in that dreary 
interval of drought which intervenes between 
quarterly stipendiary showers, that Provi- 
dence, by the creation of a money-tree, might 
have simplified wonderfully the sometimes per- 
plexing problem of human life. We read of 
bread-trees, the butter for which lies ready- 
churned in Irish bogs. Milk-trees we are as- 
sured of in South America, and stout Sir John 
Hawkins testifies to water-trees in the Cana- 
ries. Boot-trees bear abundantly in Lynn and 
elsewhere ; and I have seen, in the entries of 
the wealthy, hat-trees with a fair show of fruit. 
A family-tree I once cultivated myself, and 
found therefrom but a scanty yield, and that 
quite tasteless and innutritious. Of trees bear- 
ing men we are not without examples ; as those 
in the park of Louis the Eleventh of France. 
Who has forgotten, moreover, that olive-tree, 
growing in the Athenian's back-garden, with its 
strange uxorious crop, for the general propaga- 
tion of which, as of a new and precious variety, 
the philosopher Diogenes, hitherto uninterested 
in arboriculture, was so zealous ? In the sylvo, 
of our own Southern States, the females of my 
family have called my attention to the china- 
tree. Not to multiply examples, I will barely 
add to my list the birch-tree, in the smaller 
branches of which has been implanted so 
miraculous a virtue for communicating the 
Latin and Greek languages, and which may 
well, therefore, be classed among the trees pro- 
ducing necessaries of life, — venerabile donum 
faJalis virga?,. That money-trees existed in the 
golden age there want not prevalent reasons 
for our believing. For does not the old prov- 
erb, when it asserts that money does not grow 
on every bush, imply a fortiori that there were 
certain bushes which did produce it? Again, 
there is another ancient saw to the effect that 
money is the root of all evil. From which two 
adages it may be safe to infer that the afore- 
said species of tree first degenerated into a 
shrub, then absconded underground, and final- 
ly, in our iron age, vanished altogether. In 
favorable exposures it may be conjectured that 



198 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



a specimen or two survived to a great age, as 
in the garden of the Hesperides ; and, indeed, 
what else could that tree in the Sixth iEneid 
have been, with a branch whereof the Trojan 
hero procured admission to a territory, for the 
entering of which money is a surer passport 
than to a certain other more profitable (too) 
for : gn kingdom ? Whether these speculations 
of mine have any force in them, or whether 
they will not rather, by most readers, be deemed 
impertinent to the matter in hand, is a ques- 
tion which I leave to the determination of an 
indulgent posterity. That there were, in more 
primitive and happier times, shops where 
money was sold, — and that, too, on credit and 
at a bargain, — I take to be matter of demon- 
stration . For what but a dealer in this article 
was that Mollis who supplied Ulysses with 
motive-power for his fleet in bags ? What that 
Ericus, King of Sweden, who is said to have 
kept the winds in his cap? what, in more 
recent times, those Lapland Nomas who traded 
in favorable breezes ? All which will appear 
the more clearly when we consider, that, even 
to this day, raising the wind is proverbial ior 
raising money, and that brokers and banks 
were invented by the Venetians at a later pe- 
riod. 

And now for the improvement of this digres- 
sion. I find a parallel to Mr. Sawin's fortune 
in an adventure of my own. For, shortly after 
I had first broached to myself the before-stated 
natural-historical and archaeological theories, 
as I was passing, licec negotia penitus mecum 
revolvens, through one of the obscure suburbs 
of our New England metropolis, my eye was 
attracted by these words upon a sign-board, — 
Cheap Cash-Store. Here was at once the 
confirmation of my speculations, and the sub- 
stance of my hopes. Here lingered the frag- 
ment of a happier past, or stretched out the 
first tremulous organic filament of a more for- 
tunate future. Thus glowed the distant Mex- 
ico to the eyes of Sawin, as he looked through 
the dirty pane of the recruiting-office window, 
or speculated from the summit of that rnirage- 
Pisgah which the imps of the bottle are so 
cunning in raising up. Already had my Al- 
naschar-fancy (even during that first half-be- 
lieving glance) expended in various useful direc- 
tions the funds to be obtained by pledging the 
manuscript of a proposed volume of discourses. 
Already did a clock ornament the tower of the 
Jaalani meeting-house, a gift appropriately, 
but modestly, commemorated in the parish and 
town records, both, for now many years, kept 
by myself. Already had my son Seneca com- 
pleted his course at the University. Whether, 
for the moment, we may not be considered as 
actually lording it over those Baratarias with 
the viceroyalty of which Hope invests us, and 
whether we are ever so warmly housed as in 
our Spanish castles, would afford matter of 
argument. Enough that I found that sign- 
board to be no other than a bait to the trap of 
a decayed grocer. Nevertheless, I bought a 
pound of dates (getting short weight by reason 
of immense flights of harpy flies who pursued 
and lighted upon their prey even in the very 
scales), which purchase I made, not only with 
an eye to the little ones at home, but also as 
a figurative reproof of that too frequent habit 
of my mind, which, forgetting the due order of 



chronology, will often persuade me that the 
happy sceptre of Saturn is stretched over this 
Astraea-forsaken nineteenth century. 

Having glanced at tiie ledger of Glory under 
the title Sawin, B., let us extend our inves- 
tigations, and discover if that instructive vol- 
ume does not contain some charges more 
personally interesting to ourselves. I think we 
should be more economical of our -resources, 
did we thoroughly appreciate the fact, that, 
whenever Brother Jonathan seems tobethrusL- 
ing his hand into his own pocket, he is, in fact, 
picking ours. I confess that the late muck 
which the country has been running has mate- 
rially changed my views as to the best method 
of raising revenue. If, by means of direct tax- 
ation, the bills for every extraordinary outlay 
were brought under our immediate eye, so that, 
like thrifty housekeepers, we could see where 
and how fast the money was going, we should 
be less likely to commit extravagances. At 
present, these things are managed in such 
a hugger-mugger way, that we know not what 
we pay for ; the poor man is charged as much 
as the rich ; and, while we are saving and 
scrimping at the spigot, the government is 
drawing off at the bung. If we could know 
that a part of the money we expend for tea 
and coffee goes to buy powder and balls, and 
that it is Mexican blood which makes the 
clothes on our backs more costly, it would set 
some of us athinking. During the present fall, 
I have often pictured to myself a government 
official entering my study and handing me the 
following bill : — 

Washington, Sept 30, 1848. 
Rev. Homer Wilbur to Encle Samuel, 

Dr. 
To his share of work done in Mexico on 
partnership account, sundry jobs, 
as below. 

" killing, maiming, and wounding about 

5,000 Mexicans, . . . .$2.00 

" slaughtering one woman carrying wa- 
ter to wounded, 10 

"extra work on two different Sabbaths 
(one bombardment and one as- 
sault), whereby the Mexicans 
were prevented from defiling 
themselves with the idolatries of 
high mass, 3.50 

" throwing an especially fortunate and 

Protestant bombshell into the 

Cathedral at Vera Cruz, whereby 

several female Papists were slain 

, at the altar, 50 

" his proportion of cash paid for con- 
quered territory, . . . 1. 75 

" do. do. for conquering do. . 1.5'J 

" manuring do. with new superior 
compost called "American Citi- 
zen," 50 

" extending the area of freedom and 

Protestantism, 01 

" glory, .01 

$9.87 
Immediate payment is requested. 

N. B. Thankful for former favors, U. S. 
requests a continuance of patronage. Orders 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



199 



executed with neatness and despatch. Terms 
as low as those of any other contractor for the 
same kind and style of work. 

I can fancy the official answering my look of 
horror with, — "Yes, Sir, it looks like a high 
charge, Sir ; but in these days slaughtering is 
slaughtering." Verily, I would that every one 
understood that it was ; for it goes about ob- 
taining money under the false pretence of being 
glory. For me, I have an imagination which 
plays me uncomfortable tricks. It happens to 
me sometimes to see a slaughterer on his way 
home from his day's work, and forthwith my 
imagination puts a cocked-hat upon his head 
and epaulettes upon his shoulders, and sets 
him up as a candidate for the Presidency. So, 
also, on a recent public occasion, as the place 
assigned to the "Reverend Clergy" is just be- 
hind that of " Officers of the Army and Navy " 
in processions, it was my fortune to be seated 
at the dinner-table over against one of these 
respectable persons. He was arrayed as (out 
of his own profession) only kings, court-offi- 
cers, and footmen are in Europe, and Indians 
in America. Now what does my over-officious 
imagination but set to work upon him, strip 
him of his gay livery, and present him to me 
coatless, his trousers thrust into the tops of 
a pair of boots thick with clotted blood, and a 
basket on his arm out of which lolled a gore- 
smeared axe, thereby destroying my relish for 
the temporal mercies upon the board before 
me! — H. W.) 



No. IX. 

A THIRD LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ. 

[Upon the following letter slender comment 
will be needful. In what river Selemnus has Mr. 
Sawin bathed, that he has become so swiftly 
oblivious of his former loves ? From an ardent 
and (as befits a soldier) confident wooer of that 
coy bride, the popular favor, we see him sub- 
side of a sudden into the (I trust not jilted) 
Cincinnatus, returning to his plough with a 
goodly sized branch of willow in his hand ; 
figuratively returning, however, to a figurative 
plough, and from no profound affection for that 
honored implement of husbandry (for which, 
indeed, Mr. Sawin never displayed any decided 
predilection), but in order to be gracefully sum- 
moned therefrom to more congenial labors. It 
would seem that the character of the ancient 
Dictator had become part of the recognized 
stock of our modern political comedy, though, 
as our term of office extends to a quadrennial 
length, the parallel is not so minutely exact as 
could be desired. It is sufficiently so, how- 
ever, for purposes of scenic representation. 
An humble cottage (if built of logs, the better) 
forms the Arcadian background of tlie stage. 
This rustic paradise is labelled Ashland, Ja- 
alam, North Bend, Marshfield, Kinderhook, or 
Baton Rouge, as occasion demands. Before 
the door stands a something with one handle 
(the other painted in proper perspective), 
which represents, in happy ideal vagueness, 
the plough. To this the defeated candidate 



rushes with delirious joy, welcomed as a father 
by appropriate groups of happy laborers, or 
from it the successful one is torn with diffi- 
culty, sustained alone by a noble sense of pub- 
lic duty. Only I have observed, that, if the 
scene be laid at Baton Rouge or Ashland, the 
laborers are kept carefully in the background, 
and are heard to shout from behind the ocenes 
in a singular tone resembling ululation, and 
accompanied by a sound not unlike vigorous 
clapping. This, however, may be artistically 
in keeping with the habits of the rustic popula- 
tion of those localities. The precise connection 
between agricultural pursuits and statesman- 
ship, I have not been able, after diligent 
inquiry, to discover. But, that my investiga- 
tions may not be barren of all fruit, I will 
mention one curious statistical fact, which I 
consider thoroughly established, namely, that 
no real farmer ever attains practically beyond 
a seat in General Court, however theoretically 
qualified for more exalted station. 

It is probable that some other prospect has 
been opened to Mr. Sawin, and that he has not 
made this great sacrifice without some definite 
understanding in regard to a seat in the cab- 
inet or a foreign mission. It may be supposed 
that we of Jaalam were not untouched by a 
feeling of villatic pride in beholding our towns- 
man occupying so large a space in the public 
eye. And to me, deeply revolving the quali- 
fications necessary to a candidate in these fru- 
gal times, those of Mr. S. seemed peculiarly 
adapted to a successful campaign. The loss of 
a leg, an arm, an eye, and four fingers reduced 
him so nearly to the condition of a vox et prcn- 
terea nihil, that I could think of nothing but 
the loss of his head by which his chance could 
have been bettered. But since he has chosen 
to balk our suffrages, we must content our- 
selves with what we can get, remembering lac- 
tucas non esse dandas, dum cardui sufficiant — 
H. W.] 



I spose you recollect thet I explained 

my gennle views 
In the last billet thet I writ, 'way down 

frum Veery Cruze, 
Jest arter I'd a kind o' ben sponta- 

nously sot up 
To run unannermously fer the Presiden- 
tial cup ; 
0' course it worn't no wish o' mine, 

't wuz ferflely distressin', 
But poppiler enthusiasm gut so almighty 

pressin' 
Thet, though like sixty all along I fumed 

an' fussed an' sorrered, 
There did n't seem no ways to stop their 

bringin' on me forrerd : 
Fact is, they udged the matter so, I 

could n't help admit tin' 
The Father o' his Country's shoes no 

feet but mine 'ould fit in, 
Besides the savin' o' the soles fer ages to 

succeed, 



200 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Seem thet with one wannut foot, a pair 

'd be more 'n I need ; 
An', tell ye wut, them shoes '11 want a 

thund'rin sight o' pat chin', 
Ef this ere fashion is to last we 've gut 

into o' hatchin' 
A pair o' second Washintons fer every 

new election, — 
Though, fer ez number one 's consarned, 

I don't make no objection. 

I wuz agoin' on to say thet wen at fust I 

saw 
The masses would stick to 't I wuz the 

Country's father-'n-law, 
(They would ha' hed it Father, but I told 

'em 't would n't du, 
Coz thet wuz sutthin' of a sort they 

could n't split in tu, 
An' Washinton hed hed the thing laid 

fairly to his door, 
Nor dars n't say 't worn't his'n, much 

ez sixty year afore,) 
But 't aint no matter ez to thet ; wen I 

wuz nomernated, 
'T worn't natur but wut I should feel 

consid'able elated, 
An' wile the hooraw o' the thing wuz 

kind o' noo an' fresh, 
I thought our ticket would ha' caird the 

country with a resh. 

Sence I 've come hum, though, an' looked 

round, I think I seem to find 
Strong argimunts ez thick ez fleas to 

make me change my mind ; 
It 's clear to any one whose brain aint 

fur gone in a phthisis, 
Thet hail Columby's happy land is goin' 

thru a crisis, 
An' 't would n't noways du to hev the 

people's mind distracted 
By bein' all to once by sev'ral pop'lar 

names attackted ; 
'T would save holl haycartloads o' fuss 

an' three four months o' jaw, 
Ef some illustrous paytriot should back 

out an' withdraw ; 
So, ez I aint a crooked stick, jest like — 

like ole (I swow, 
I dunno ez I know his name) — I '11 go 

back to my plough. 

"Wenever an Amerikin distinguished pol- 

itishin 
Begins to try et wut they call definin' 

his posishin, 



Wal, I, fer one, feel sure he aint gut 

nothin' to define ; 
It 's so nine cases out o' ten, but jest that 

tenth is mine ; 
And 't aint no more 'n is proper 'n' right 

in sech a sitooation 
To hint the course you think '11 be the 

savin' o' the nation ; 
To funk right out o' p'lit'cal strife aint 

thought to be the thing, 
Without you deacon off the toon you 

want your folks should sing; 
So I edvise the noomrous friends thet 's 

in one boat with me 
To jest up killock, jam right down their 

helium hard a lee, 
Haul the sheets taut, an', laying out upon 

the Suthun tack, 
Make fer the safest port they can, wich, 

/ think, is Ole Zack. 

Next thing you '11 want to know, I 

spose, wut argimunts I seem 
To see thet makes me think this ere '11 

be the strongest team ; 
Fust place, I 've ben consid'ble round in 

bar-rooms an' saloons 
Agetherin' public sentiment, 'mongst 

Demmercrats and Coons, 
An' 't aint ve'y offen thet I meet a chap 

but wut goes in 
Fer Ptough an' Eeady, fair an' square, 

hufs, taller, horns, an' skin ; 
I don't deny but wut, fer one, ez fur ez I 

could see, 
I did n't like at fust the Pheladelphy 

nomernee : » 
I could ha' pinted to a man thet wuz, I 

guess, a peg 
Higher than him, — a soger, tu, an' with 

a wooden leg ; 
But every day with more an' more o' 

Taylor zeal I 'm burnin', 
Seem' wich way the tide thet sets to 

office is aturnin' ; 
Wy, into Bellers's we notched the votes 

down on three sticks, — 
'T wuz Birdofredum one, Cass aught, an' 

Taylor twenty -six, 
An' bein' the on'y. canderdate thet wuz 

upon the ground, 
They said 't wuz no more 'n right thet I 

should pay the drinks all round ; 
Ef I 'd expected sech a trick, I would n't 

ha' cut my foot 
By goin' an' votin' fer myself like a con- 
sumed coot ; 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



201 



It did n't make no diffrence, though; I 

wish I may be cust, 
Ef Bellers wuz n't slim enough to say he 

would n't trust ! 



Another pint thet influences the minds 

o' sober jedges 
Is thet the Gin'ral hez n't gut tied hand 

an' foot with pledges ; 
He hez n't told ye wut he is, an' so .there 

aint no knowin' 
But wut he may turn out to be the best 

there is agoin' ; 
This, at the on'y spot thet pinched, the 

shoe directly eases, 
Coz every one is free to 'xpect percisely 

wut he pleases : 
I want free -trade ; you don't ; the Gi)i- 

'ral is n't bound to neither ; — 
I vote my way ; you, yourn ; an' both 

air sooted to a T there. 
Ole Rough an' Ready, tu, 's a Wig, but 

without bein' ultry 
(He 's like a holsome hayin' day, thet 's 

warm, but is n't sultry ; 
He 's jest wut I should call myself, a 

kin' o' scratch ez 't ware, 
Thet aint exacly all a wig nor wholly 

your own hair : 
I 've ben a Wig three weeks myself, 

jest o' this mod'rate sort, 
An' don't find them an' Demmercrats so 

different ez I thought ; 
They both act pooty much alike, an' 

push an' scrouge an' cus ; 
They 're like two pickpockets in league 

fer Uncle Sam well's pus ; 
Each takes a side, an' then they squeeze 

the ole man in between em, 
Turn all his pockets wrong side out an' 

quick ez lightnin' clean 'em ; 
To nary one on 'em I 'd trust a secon'- 

handed rail 
No furder off 'an I could sling a bullock 

by the tail. 

Webster sot matters right in thet air 

Mashfier speech o' his'n ; — 
"Taylor," sez he, "aint nary ways the 

one thet I 'd a chizzen, 
Nor he aint fittin' fer the place, an' like 

ez not he aint 
No more 'n a tough ole bullethead, an' 

no gret of a saint ; 
But then," sez he, " obsarve my pint, 

he 's jest ez good to vote fer 



Ez though the greasin' on him worn't a 

thing to hire Choate fer ; 
Aint it ez easy done to drop a ballot in 

a box 
Fer one ez 't is fer t' other, fer the bull- 
dog ez the fox?" 
It takes a mind like Dannel's, fact, ez big 

ez all ou' doors, 
To find out thet it looks like rain arter 

it fairly pours ; 
I 'gree with him, it aint so drefrle trou- 
blesome to vote 
Fer Taylor arter all, — it 's jest to go an' 

change your coat ; 
Wen he 's once greased, you '11 swaller 

him an' never know on 't, scurce, 
Unless he scratches, goin' down, with 

them 'ere Gin'ral's spurs. 
I 've ben a votin' Demmercfat, ez reg- 

'lar as a clock, 
But don't find goin' Taylor gives my 

narves no gret 'f a shock ; 
Truth is, the cutest leadin' Wigs, ever 

sence fust they found 
Wich side the bread gut buttered on, hev 

kep' a edgin' round ; 
They kin' o' slipt the planks frum out th' 

ole platform one by one 
An' made it gradooally noo, 'fore folks 

know'd wut wuz done, 
Till, fur 'z I know, there aint an inch 

thet I could lay my han' on, 
But I, or any Demmercrat, feels comf t- 

ble to stan' on, 
An' ole Wig doctrines act'lly look, their 

occ'pants bein' gone, 
Lonesome ez staddles on a mash with- 
out no hayricks on. 

I spose it 's time now I should give my 

thoughts upon the plan, 
Thet chipped the shell at Buffalo, o' set- 
tin' up ole Van. 
I used to vote fer Martin, but, I swan, 

I'm clean disgusted, — 
He aint the man thet I can say is fittin' 

to be trusted ; 
He aint half antislav'ry 'nough, nor I 

aint sure, ez some be, 
He 'd go in fer abolishin' the Deestrick 

o' Columby ; 
An', now I come to recollec, it kin' o' 

makes me sick 'z 
A horse, to think o' wut he wuz in 

eighteen thirty-six. 
An' then, another thing ; — I guess, 

though mebby I am wrong, 



202 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



This Buff To plaster aint agoin' to dror 

almighty strong ; 
Some folks, I know, hev gut th' idee 

thet No'thun dough '11 rise, 
Though, 'fore I see it riz an' baked, I 

would n't trust my eyes ; 
'T will take more emptins, a long chalk, 

than this noo party 's gut, 
To give sech heavy cakes ez them a 

start, I tell ye wut. 
But even ef they caird the day, there 

would n't be no endurin' 
To stan' upon a platform, with sech crit- 
ters ez Van Buren ; — 
An' his son John, tu, I can't think how 

thet 'ere chap should dare 
To speak ez he doos ; wy, they say he 

used to cuss an' swear! 
I spose he never read the hymn thet 

tells how down the stairs 
A feller with long legs wuz throwed thet 

would n't say his prayers. 
This brings me to another pint : the 

leaders o' the party 
Aint jest sech men ez I can act along 

with free an' hearty ; 
They aint not quite respectable, an' wen 

a feller's morrils 
Don't toe the straightest kin' o' mark, 

w T y, him an' me jest quarrils. 
I went to a free soil meetin' once, an' 

wut d' ye think I see ? 
A feller was aspoutin' there thet act'lly 

come to me, 
About two year ago last spring, ez nigh 

ez I can jedge, 
An' axed me ef I did n't want to sign 

the Temprunce pledge ! 
He's one o' them that goes about an' sez 

you hed n't ough'ter 
Drink nothin', mornin', noon, or night, 

stronger 'an Taunton water. 
There 's one rule 1 've ben guided by, in 

settlin' how to vote, oilers, — 
I take the side thet is nt took by them 

consarned teetotallers. 

Ez fer the niggers, I 've ben South, an' 

thet hez changed my min' ; 
A lazier ; more ongrateful set you could 

n't nowers fin'. 
You know I mentioned in my last thet 

I should buy a nigger, 
Ef I could make a purchase at a pooty 

mod' rate figger ; 
So, ez there 's nothin' in the world I 'm 

fonder of 'an gunnm', 



I closed a bargain finally to take a feller 

runnin'. 
I shou'dered queen's-arm an' stumped 

out, an' wen I come t' th' swamp, 
'T worn't very long afore 1 gut upon the 

nest o' Pomp ; 
I come acrost a kin' o' hut, an', playin' 

round the door, 
Some little woolly-headed cubs, ez 

many 'z six or more. 
At fust I thought o' firin', but think 

twice is safest oilers; 
There aint, thinks I, not one on 'em 

but's wuth his twenty dollars, 
Or would be, ef I hed 'em back into a 

Christian land, — 
How temptin' all on 'em would look 

upon an auction-stand ! 
(Not but wut / hate Slavery, in th' 

abstract, stem to starn, — 
I leave it ware our fathers did, a privit 

State consarn.) 
Soon 'z they see me, they yelled an' run, 

but Pomp wuz out ahoein' 
A leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else 

there aint no knowin' 
He would n't ha' took a pop at me ; but 

I hed gut the start, 
An 5 wen he looked, I vow he groanecT 

ez though he 'd broke his heart ; 
He done it like a wite man, tu, ez nat'- 

ral ez a pictur, 
The imp'dunt, pis' nous hypocrite ! wus 

'an a boy constrictur. 
" You can't gum me, 1 tell ye now, an' 

so you need n't try, 
I 'xpect my eye-teeth every mail, so jest 

shet up," sez I. 
" Don't go to actin' ugly now, or else 

I '11 let her strip, 
You 'd best draw kindly, seein' 'z how 

I 've gut ye on the hip ; 
Besides, you darned ole fool, it aint no 

gret of a disaster 
To be benev'lently clruv back to a con- 
tented master, 
Ware you hed Christian priv'ledges you 

don't seem quite aware on, 
Or you 'd ha' never run away from bein' 

well took care on ; 
Ez fer kin' treatment, wy,. he wuz so 

fond on ye, he said 
He 'd give a fifty spot right out, to git 

ye, 'live or dead ; 
Wite folks aint sot by half ez much ; 

'member I run away, 



THE BIGLOW PAPEItS. 



20b 



Wen I wuz bound to Cap'n Jakes, to 

Mattysqumscot Bay ; 
Don' know him, likely ? Spose not ; 

wal, the mean ole codger went 
An' offered — wut reward, think ? Wal, 

it worn't no less 'n a cent." 

Wal, I jest gut 'em into line, an' druv 

'em on afore me, 
The pis'nous brutes, 1 'd no idee o' the 

ill-will they bore me ; 
We walked till som'ers about noon, an' 

then it grew so hot 
I thought it best to camp awile, so I 

chose out a spot 
Jest under a magnoly tree, an' there 

right down 1 sot ; 
Then 1 unstrapped my wooden leg, coz 

it begun to chafe, 
An' laid it down 'long side o' me, sup- 

posin' all wuz safe ; 
I made my darkies all set down around 

me in a ring, 
An' sot an' kin' o' ciphered up how 

much the lot would bring; 
But, wile 1 drinked the peaceful cup of 

a pure heart an' min' 
(Mixed with some wiskey, now an' then), 

Pomp he snaked up behin', 
An' creepin' grad'lly close tu, ez quiet 

ez a mink, 
Jest grabbed my leg, and then pulled 

foot, quicker 'an you could wink, 
An', come to look, they each on 'em 

hed gut behin' a tree, 
An' Pomp poked out the leg a piece, 

jest so ez 1 could see, 
An' yelled to me to throw away my pis- 
tils an' my gun, 
Or else thet they 'd cair off the leg, an' 

fairly cut an' run. 
I vow I did n't b'lieve there wuz a de- 
cent alligatur 
Thet hed a heart so destitoot o' common 

human natur ; 
However, ez there worn't no help, I 

finally give in 
An' heft my arms away to git my leg 

safe back agin. 
Pomp gethered all the weapins up, an' 

then he come an' grinned, 
He showed his ivory some, I guess, an' 

sez, " You 're fairly pinned ; 
Jest buckle on your leg agin, an' git 

right up an' come, 
'T wun't du fer fammerly men like me 

to be so long frum hum." 



At fust I put my foot right down an' 

swore 1 would n't budge. 
" Jest ez you choose," sez he, quite cool, 

" either be shot or trudge." 
So this black-hearted monster took an 

act'lly druv me back 
Along the very feetmarks o' my happy 

morn in' track, 
An' kep' me pris'ner 'bout six months, 

an' worked me, tu, like sin, 
Till 1 hed gut his corn an his Carliny 

taters in : 
He made me larn him readin', tu (al- 
though the crittur saw 
How much it hut my morril sense to act 

agin the law), 
So'st he could read a Bible he 'd gut ; 

an' axed ef I could pint 
The North Star out ; but there I put 

his nose some out o' jint, 
Fer I weeled roun' about sou'west, an', 

lookin' up a bit, 
Picked out a middlin' shiny one an' tole 

him thet wuz it. 
Fin'lly, he took me to the door, an', 

givin' me a kick, 
Sez, — " Ef you know wut 's best fer ye, 

be off, now, double-quick ; 
The winter-time 's a comin' on, an', 

though I gut ye cheap, 
You're so darned lazy, 1 don't think 

you 're hardly wuth your keep ; 
Besides, the childrin 's growin' up, an' 

you aint jest the model 
I 'd like to hev 'em immertate, an' so 

you 'd better toddle ! " 

Now is there anythin' on airth '11 ever 

prove to me 
Thet renegader slaves like him air fit 

fer bein' free ? 
D' you think they '11 suck me in to jine 

the Buff'lo chaps, an' them 
Rank infidels thet go agin the Scriptur'l 

cus o' Shem ? 
Not by a jugfull ! sooner 'n thet, I 'd. 

go thru fire an' water ; 
W x en I hev once made up my mind, a 

meet'nhus aint sotter; 
No, not though all the crow T s thet flies 

to pick my bones wuz cawin', — 
I guess we 're in a Christian land, — 
Yourn, 

BTRDOFREDUM SAWIN. 

[Here, patient reader, we take leave of each 
other, I trust with some mutual satisfaction. 
I say patient, for I love not that kind which 



204 



THE BIGLOVv PAPERS. 



skims dippingly over the surface of the page, 
as swallows over a pool before rain. By such 
no pearls shall be gathered. But if no pearls 
there be (as, indeed, the world is not without 
example of books wherefrom the longest-winded 
diver shall bring up no more than his proper 
handful of mud), yet let us hoj)e that an oyster 
or two may reward adequate perseverance. If 
neither pearls nor oysters, yet is patience itself 
a gem worth diving deeply far.' 

It may seem to some that too much space 
has been usurped by my own private lucubra- 
tions, and some may be fain to bring against 
me that old jest of him who preached all his 
hearers out of the meeting-house save only the 
sexton, who, remaining for yet a little space, 
from a sense of official duty, at last gave out 
also, and, presenting the keys, humbly requested 
our preacher to lock the doors, when he should 
have wholly relieved himself of his testimony. 
I confess to a satisfaction in the self act of 
preaching, nor do I esteem a discourse to be 
wholly thrown away even upon a sleeping or 
unintelligent auditory. I cannot easily believe 
that the Gospel of Saint John, which Jacques 
Cartier ordered to be read in the Latin tongue 
to the Canadian savages, upon his first meeting 
with them, fell altogether upon stony ground. 
For the earnestness of the preacher is a sermon 
appreciable by dullest intellects and most alien 
ears. In this wise did Episcopius convert 
many to his opinions, who yet understood not 
the language in which he discoursed. The 
chief thing is that the messenger believe that 
he has an authentic message to deliver. For 
counterfeit messengers that mode of treatment 
which Father John de Piano Carpini relates to 
have prevailed among the Tartars would seem 
effectual, and, perhaps, deserved enough. For 
my own part, I may lay claim to so much of 
the spirit of martyrdom as would have led me 
to go into banishment with those clergymen 
whom Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal drave 
out of his kingdom for refusing to shorten their 
pulpit eloquence. It is possible, that, having 
beeu invited into my brother Biglow's desk, I 
may have been too little scrupulous in using it 
for the venting of my own peculiar doctrines to 
a congregation drawn together in the expecta- 
tion and with the desire of hearing him. 



I am not wholly unconscious of a peculiarity 
of mental organization which impels me, like 
the railroad-engine with its train of cars, to run 
backward for a short distance in order to ob- 
tain a fairer start. I may compare myself to 
one fishing from the rocks when the sea runs 
high, who, misinterpreting the suction of the 
undertow for the biting of some larger fish, 
jerks suddenly, and finds that he has caught bot- 
tom, hauling in upon the end of his line a trail 
of various algce, among which, nevertheless, the 
naturalist may haply find somewhat to repay 
the disappointment of the angler. Yet have I 
conscientiously endeavored to adapt myself to 
the impatient temper of the age, daily degener- 
ating more and more from the high standard of 
our pristine New England. To the catalogue 
of lost arts I would mournfully add also that 
of listening to two-hour sermons. Surely we 
have been abridged into a race of pygmies. 
For, truly, in those of the old discourses yet 
subsisting to us in print, the endless spinal 
column of divisions and subdivisions can be 
likened to nothing so exactly as to the verte- 
bras of the saurians, whence the theorist may 
conjecture a race of Anakim proportionate to 
the withstanding of these other monsters. I 
say Anakim rather than Nephelim, because 
there seem reasons for supposing that the race 
of those whose heads (though no giants) are 
constantly enveloped in clouds (which that 
name imports) will never become extinct. The 
attempt to vanquish the innumerable heads 
of one of those afore- mentioned discourses 
may supply us with a plausible interpretation 
of the second labor of Hercules, and his suc- 
cessful experiment with tire affords us a useful 
precedent. 

But while I lament the degeneracy of the age 
in this regard, I cannot refuse to succumb to 
its influence. Looking out through my study- 
window, I see Mr. Biglow at a distance busy 
in gathering his Baldwins, of which, to judge 
by the number of barrels lying about under the 
trees, his crop is more abundant than my own, 
— by which sight I am admonished to turn to 
those orchards of the mind wherein my labors 
may be more prospered, and apply myself dili- 
gently to- the preparation of my next Sabbath's 
discourse. — H. W.] 



MELIBCEUS-HIPPONAX. 



THE 



Bigloco Jpapers, 



SECOND SERIES. 
"J&vtiv dp 6 l8i(OTi(TjULds ivioTG rod kqct^lov irapoaroXi) ifitpavmriKuyrcpov. 

LONGINUS. 

" J'aimerois mieulx que mon fils apprinst aux tavernes a parler, qu'aux escholes de la 

parlerie." 

Montaigne. 

„ttnfer 6prad) ijl aud) ein ©pratty unb fan fo »o$l tin <Sacf nennen M bie £annar 
saccus." 

FlSCHART. 

" Vim rebus aliquando ipsa verborum humilitas affert." 

Quintilianu^ 

" O ma lengo, 
Plsuitarey une estelo a toun froun encrumit ! * 

Jasivmn. 



TO 

E. R. HOAR, 



" Multos enim, quibus loquendi ratio non desit, invenias, quos curiose potius loqui dixeris 
quam Latine ; quoraodo et ilia Attica anus Theophrastum, hominem alioqui disertissimum, 
annotata unius affectatione verbi, hospitem dixit, nee alio se id deprehendisse interrogata re- 
spondit, quain quod nimium Attice loqueretur. " — Quintilianus. 

" Et Anglice sermonicari solebat populo, sed secundum linguam Norfolchie ubi natus et nu- 
tritus erat." — Cronica Jocelini. 

" La politique est une pierre attachee au cou de la litterature, et qui en moms de six mois la 

submerge Cette politique va offenser mortellement une moitie des lecteurs, et ennuyer 

Tautre qui l'a trouvee bien autrement speciale et energique dans le journal du matin." — Henri 
Beylb. 



I 



ar t 



% 




INTRODUCTION. 



Though prefaces seem of late to have 
fallen under some reproach, they have at 
least this advantage, that they set us 
again on the feet of our personal conscious- 
ness and rescue us from the gregarious 
mock-modesty or cowardice of that we 
which shrills feebly throughout modern 
literature like the shrieking of mice in the 
walls of a house that has passed its prime. 
Having a few words to say to the many 
friends whom the " Biglow Papers " have 
won me, I shall accordingly take the free- 
dom of the first person singular of the 
personal pronoun. Let each of the good- 
natured unknown who have cheered me by 
the written communication of their sym- 
pathy look upon this Introduction as a 
private letter to himself. 

When, more than twenty years ago, I 
wrote the first of the series, I had no defi- 
nite plan and no intention of ever writing 
another. Thinking the Mexican war, as I 
think it still, a national crime committed 
in behoof of Slavery, our common sin, and 
wishing to put the feeling of those who 
thought as I did in a way that would tell, 
I imagined to myself such an upcountry 
man as I had often seen at antislavery 
gatherings, capable of district-school Eng- 
lish, but always instinctively falling back 
into the natural stronghold of his homely 
dialect when heated to the point of self- 
forgetfulness. When I began to carry out 
my conception and to write in my as- 
sumed character, I found myself in a strait 
between two perils. On the one hand, I 
was in danger of being carried beyond the 
limit of my own opinions, or at least of 
that temper with which every man should 
speak his mind in print, and on the other 
I feared the risk of seeming to vulgarize a 
deep and sacred conviction. I needed on 
occasion to rise above the level of mere 
patois, and for this purpose conceived the 
Rev. Mr. Wilbur, who should express the 
more cautious element of the New England 
character and its pedantry, as Mr. Biglow^ 
should serve for its homely common -sense 
vivified and heated by conscience. The 
parson was to be the complement rather 
than the antithesis of his parishioner, and 



I felt or fancied a certain humorous ele- 
ment in the real identity of the two under 
a seeming incongruity. Mr. Wilbur's fond- 
ness for scraps of Latin, though drawn 
from the life, I adopted deliberately to 
heighten the contrast. Finding soon after 
that I needed some one as a mouthpiece of 
the mere drollery, for I conceive that true 
humor is never divorced from moral con- 
viction, I invented Mr. Sawin for the 
clown of my little puppet-show. I meant 
to embody in him that half-conscious un- 
morality which I had noticed as the recoil 
in gross natures from a puritauism that 
still strove to keep in its creed the intense 
savor which had long gone out of its faith 
and life. In the three I thought I should 
find room enough to express, as it was my 
plan to do, the popular feeling and opin-. 
ion of the time. For the names of two of 
my characters, since I have received some 
remonstrances from very worthy persons 
who happen to bear them, I would say 
| that they were purely fortuitous, proba- 
bly mere unconscious memories of sign- 
boards or directories. Mr. Sawin's sprang 
from the accident of a rhyme at the end 
of his first epistle, and I purposely chris- 
tened him by the impossible surname of 
Birdofredum not more to stigmatize him 
as the incarnation of " Manifest Destiny," 
in other words, of national recklessness as 
to right and wrong, than to avoid the 
chance of wounding any private sensitive- 
ness. 

The success of my experiment soon began 
not only to astonish me, but to make me 
feel the responsibility of knowing that I 
held in my hand a weapon instead of the 
mere fencing-stick I had supposed. Very 
far from being a popular author under my 
own name, so far, indeed, as to be almost, 
unread, I found the verses of my pseu- 
donyme copied everywhere ; I saw them 
pinned up in workshops ; I heard them 
quoted and their authorship debated ; I 
once even, when rumor had at length 
caught up my name in one of its eddies, 
had the satisfaction of overhearing it dem- 
onstrated, in the pauses of a concert, that 
I was utterly incompetent to have writ- 



210 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



ten anything of the kind. I had read too 
much not to know the utter worthless!] ess 
of contemporary reputation, especially as 
regards satire, but I knew also that by 
giving a certain amount of influence it also 
had its worth, if that influence were used on 
the right side. I had learned, too, that the 
first requisite of good writing is to have an 
earnest and definite purpose, whether aes- 
thetic or moral, and that even good writing, 
to please long, must have more than an 
average amount either of imagination or 
common-sense. The first of these falls to 
the lot of scarcely one in several genera- 
tions ; the last is within the reach of many 
in every one that passes ; and of this an 
author may fairly hope to become in part 
the mouthpiece. If I put on the cap and 
bells and made myself one of the court- 
fools of King Demos, it was less to make 
his majesty laugh than to win a passage 
to his royal ears for certain serious things 
which I had deeply at heart. I say this 
because there is no imputation that could 
be more galling to any man's self-respect 
than that of being a mere jester. I en- 
deavored, by generalizing my satire, to 
give it what value I could beyond the pass- 
ing moment and the immediate applica- 
tion. How far I have succeeded I cannot 
tell, but I have had better luck than I 
ever looked for in seeing my verses survive 
to pass beyond their nonage. 

In choosing the Yankee dialect, I did 
not act without forethought. It had long 
seemed to me that the great vice of Amer- 
ican writing and speaking was a studied 
Want of simplicity, that we were in danger 
of coming to look on our mother-tongue 
as a dead language, to be sought in the 
grammar and dictionary rather than in the 
heart, and that our only chance of escape 
was by seeking it at its living sources 
among those who were, as Scottowe says 
of Major-General Gibbons, " divinely illit- 
erate." President Lincoln, the only really 
great public man whom these latter days 
have seen, was great also in this, that he 
was master — witness his speech at Get- 
tysburg — of a truly masculine English, 
classic because it was of no special period, 
and level at once to the highest and lowest 
of his countrymen. But whoever should 
read the debates in Congress might fancy 
himself present at a meeting of the city 
council of some city of Southern Gaul in 
the decline of the Empire, where barba- 
rians with a Latin varnish emulated each 
other in being more than Ciceronian. 
Whether it be want of culture, for the 
highest outcome of that is simplicity, or 
for whatever reason, it is certain that very 
few American writers or speakers wield 



their native language with the directness, 
precision, and force that are common as 
the day in the mother country. We use 
it like Scotsmen, not as if it belonged to 
us, but as if we wished to prove that we 
belonged to it, by showing our intimacy 
with its written rather than with its 
spoken dialect. And yet all the while our 
popular idiom is racy with life and vigor 
and originality, bucksome (as Milton used 
the word) to our new occasions, and proves 
itself no mere graft by sending up new 
suckers from the old root in spite of us. 
It is only from its roots in the living gen- 
erations of men that a language can be 
reinforced with fresh vigor for its needs ; 
what may be called a literate dialect grows 
ever more and more pedantic and foreign, 
till it becomes at last as unfitting a vehicle 
for living thought as monkish Latin. That 
we should all be made to talk like books 
is the danger with which we are threatened 
by the Universal Schoolmaster, who does 
his best to enslave the minds and memo- 
ries of his victims to what he esteems the 
best models of English composition, that 
is to say, to the writers whose style is 
faultily correct and has no blood-warmth 
in it. No language after it has faded into 
diction, none that cannot suck up the 
feeding juices secreted for it in the rich 
mother-earth of common folk, can bring 
forth a sound and lusty book. True vigor 
and heartiness of phrase do not pass from 
page to page, but from man to man, where 
the brain is kindled and the lips suppled 
by downright living interests and by pas- 
sion in its very throe. Language is the 
soil of thought, and our own especially is 
a rich leaf-mould, the slow deposit of ages, 
the shed foliage of feeling, fancy, and im- 
agination, which has suffered an earth- 
change, that the vocal forest, as Howell 
called it, may clothe itself anew with 
living green. There is death in the dic- 
tionary; and, where language is too strictly 
limited by convention, the ground for ex- 
pression to grow in is limited also; and 
we get a potted literature, Chinese dwarfs 
instead of healthy trees. 

But while the schoolmaster has been 
busy starching our language and smooth- 
ing it flat with the mangle of a supposed 
classical authority, the newspaper reporter 
has been doing even more harm by stretch- 
ing and swelling it to suit his occasions. 
A dozen years ago I began a list, which I 
have added to from time to time, of some 
of the changes which may be fairly laid at 
his door. I give a few of them as show- 
ing their tendency, all the more dangerous 
that their effect, like that of some poisons, 
is insensibly cumulative, and that they are 



INTRODUCTION. 



211 



sure at last of effect among a people whose i two columns the old style and its modem 
chief reading is the daily paper. I give in | equivalent. 



Old Style. 

Was hanged. 

When the halter was put round his neck. 



A great crowd came to see. 
Great fire. 
The lire spread. 

House burned. 

The fire was got under. 

Man fell. 

A horse and wagon ran against. 



The frightened horse. 
Sent for the doctor. 

The mayor of the city in a short speech wel- 
comed. 



I shall say a few words. 

Began his answer. 
A bystander advised. 



He died. 



In one sense this is nothing new. The 
school of Pope in verse ended by wire- 
drawing its phrase to such thinness that 
it could bear no weight of meaning what- 
ever. Nor is fine writing by any means 
confined to America. All writers without 
imagination fall into it of necessity when- 
ever they attempt the figurative. I take 
two examples from Mr. Merivale's " His- 
tory of the Romans under the Empire," 
which, indeed, is full of such. "The last 
years of the age familiarly styled the Au- 
gustan were singularly barren of the liter- 
ary glories from which its celebrity was 
chiefly derived. One by one the stars in 
its firmament had been lost to the world ; 
Virgil and Horace, etc., had long since 
died; the charm which the imagination of 
Livy had thrown over the earlier annals of 
Rome had ceased to shine on the details 
of almost contemporary history ; and if 
the flood of his eloquence still continued 
flowing, we can hardly suppose that the 
stream was as rapid, as fresh, and as clear 
as ever." I will not waste time in criti- 
cising the bad English or the mixture of 
metaphor in these sentences, but will 
simply cite another from the same author 



New Style. 

Was launched into eternity. 

When the fatal noose was adjusted about the 
neck of the unfortunate victim of his own 
unbridled passions. 

A vast concourse was assembled to witness. 

Disastrous conflagration. 

The conflagration extended its devastating 
career. 

Edifice consumed. 

The progress of the devouring element was 
arrested. 

Individual was precipitated. 

A valuable horse attached to a vehicle driven 
by J. S., in the employment of J. B., collided 
with. 

The infuriated animal. 

Called into requisition the services of the 
family physician. 

The chief magistrate of the metropolis, in well- 
chosen and eloquent language, frequently 
interrupted by the plaudits of the surging 
multitude, officially tendered the hospitali- 
ties. 

I shall, with your permission, beg leave to 
offer some brief observations. 

Commenced his rejoinder. 

One of those omnipresent characters who, as 
if in pursuance of some previous arrange- 
ment, are certain to be encountered in the 
vicinity when an accident occurs, ventured 
the suggestion. 

He deceased, he passed out of existence, his 
spirit quitted its earthly habitation, winged 
its way to eternity, shook off its burden, etc. 

which is even worse. (t The shadowy 
phantom of the Republic continued to flit 
before the eyes of the Cassar. There was 
still, he apprehended, a germ of senti- 
ment existing, on which a scion of his own 
house, or even a stranger, might boldly 
throw himself and raise the standard of 
patrician independence." Now a ghost 
may haunt a murderer, but hardly, I 
should think, to scare him with the threat 
of taking a new lease of its old tenement. 
And fancy the scion of a house in the act 
of throwing itself m^oti a yerin of sentiment 
to raise a standard J I am glad, since we 
have so much in the same kind to answer 
for, that this bit of horticultural rhetoric 
is from beyond sea. I would not be sup- 
posed to condemn truly imaginative prose. 
There is a simplicity of splendor, no less 
than of plainness, and prose would be poor 
indeed if it could not find a tongue for 
that meaning of the mind which is behind 
the meaniug of the words. It has some- 
times seemed to me that in England there 
was a growing tendency to curtail language 
into a mere convenience, and to defecate it 
of all emotion as thoroughly as algebraic 
signs. This has arisen, no doubt, in part 



212 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



from that healthy national contempt of 
humbug which is characteristic of English- 
men, in part from that sensitiveness to the 
ludicrous which makes them so shy of ex- 
pressing feeling, but in part also, it is to 
be feared, from a growing distrust, one 
might almost say hatred, of whatever is 
super-material. There is something sad 
in the scorn with which their journalists 
treat the notion of there being such a thing 
as a national ideal, seeming utterly to 
have forgotten that even in the affairs of 
this world the imagination is as much 
matter-of-fact as the understanding. If 
we were to trust the impression made on 
us by some of the cleverest and most 
characteristic of their periodical litera- 
ture, we should think England hopelessly 
stranded on the good-humored cynicism of 
well-to-do middle-age, and should fancy it 
an enchanted nation, doomed to sit forever 
with its feet under the mahogany in that 
after-dinner mood which follows consci- 
entious repletion, and which it is ill- 
manners to disturb with any topics more 
exciting than the quality of the wines. 
But there are already symptoms that a 
large class of Englishmen are getting 
weary of the dominion of consols and 
divine common -sense, and to believe that 
eternal three per cent is not the chief end 
of man, nor the highest and only kind of 
interest to which the powers and oppor- 
tunities of England are entitled. 

The quality of exaggeration has often 
been remarked on as typical of American 
character, and especially of American hu- 
mor. In Dr. Petri's Gedrdngtes Handbuch 
der Fremdivorter, we are told that the 
word humbug is commonly used for the 
exaggerations of the North- Americans. To 
be sure, one would be tempted to think 
the dream of Columbus half fulfilled, and 
that Europe had found in the West a 
nearer way to Orientalism, at least in dic- 
tion. But it seems to me that a great deal 
of what is set down as mere extravagance 
is more fitly to be called intensity and pic- 
turesqueness, symptoms of the imagina- 
tive faculty in full health and strength, 
though producing, as yet, only the raw and 
formless material in which poetry is to 
work. By and by, perhaps, the world 
will see it fashioned into poem and picture, 
and Europe, which will be hard pushed 
for originality erelong, may have to thank 
us for a new sensation. The French con- 
tinue to find Shakespeare exaggerated 
because he treated English just as our 
country-folk do when they speak of a 
"steep price," or say that they "freeze 
to" a thing. The first postulate of an origi- 
nal literature is that a people should use 



their language instinctively and uncon- 
sciously, as if it were a lively part of their 
growth and personality, not as the mere 
torpid boon of education or inheritance. 
Even Burns contrived to write very poor 
verse and prose in English. Vulgarisms 
are often only poetry in the egg. The late 
Mr. Horace Mann, in one of his public 
addresses, commented at some length on 
the beauty and moral significance of the 
French phrase s'orienter, and called on 
his young friends to practise upon it iu 
life. There was not a Yankee in his 
audience whose problem had not always 
been to find out what was about east, and 
to shape his course accordingly. This 
charm which a familiar expression gains 
by being commented, as it were, and set 
in a new light by a foreign language, is 
curious and instructive. I cannot help 
thinking that Mr. Matthew Arnold forgets 
this a little too much sometimes when he 
writes of the beauties of French style. It 
would not be hard to find in the works of 
French Academicians phrases as coarse as 
those he cites from Burke, only they are 
veiled by the unfamiliarity of the language. 
But, however this may be, it is certain 
that poets and peasants please us iu the 
same way by translating words back again 
to their primal freshness, and infusing 
them with a delightful strangeness which 
is anything but alienation. What, for ex- 
ample, is Milton's "edge of battle" but a 
doing into English of the Latin aciesl 
Was die Gans gedacht das der Schwan 
vollbracht, what the goose but thought, 
that the sw 7 an full brought (or, to de-Sax- 
onize it a little, what the goose conceived, 
that the swan achieved), and it may well 
be that the life, invention, and vigor shown 
by our popular speech, and the freedom 
with which it is shaped to the instant 
want of those who use it, are of the best 
omen for our having a swan at last. The 
part I have taken on myself is that of the 
humbler bird. 

But it is affirmed that there is some- 
thing innately vulgar in the Yankee dia- 
lect. M. Sainte-Beuve says, with his 
usual neatness : " Je definis un patois une 
ancienne langue qui a eu des malheurs, 
ou encore une langue toute jeune et qui n'a 
pas fait fortune.''' The first part of his 
definition applies to a dialect like the Pro- 
vencal, the last to the Tuscan before Dante 
had lifted it into a classic, and neither, it 
seems to me, will quite fit a patois, which 
is not properly a dialect, but rather certain 
archaisms, proverbial phrases, and modes 
of pronunciation, which maintain them- 
selves among the uneducated side by side 
with the finished and universally accepted 



INTRODUCTION. 



213 



language. Norman French, for example, 
or Scotch down to the time of James VI. , 
could hardly be called patois, while I should 
be half inclined to name the Yankee a lingo 
rather than a dialect. It has retained a 
few words now fallen into disuse in the 
mother country, like to tarry, to progress, 
fleshy, fall, and some others ; it has changed 
the meaning of some, as in freshet ; and 
it has clung to what I suspect to have been 
the broad Norman pronunciation of e 
(which Moliere puts into the mouth of his 
rustics) iu such words as sarvant, parfect, 
vartoo, and the like. It maintains some- 
thing of the French sound of a also in 
words like chamber, danger (though the 
latter had certainly begun to take its pres- 
ent sound so early as 1636, when I find it 
sometimes spelt dainger). But in general 
it may be said that nothing can be found 
in it which does not still survive in some 
one or other of the English provincial dia- 
lects. I am not speaking now of Ameri- 
canisms properly so called, that is, of 
words or phrases which have grown into 
use here either through necessity, inven- 
tion, or accident, such as a carry, a one- 
horse affair, a prairie, to ramose. Even 
these are fewer than is sometimes taken 
for granted. But I think some lair defence 
may be made against the charge of vulgar- 
ity. Properly speaking, vulgarity is in 
the thought, and not in the word or the 
way of pronouncing it. Modern French, 
the most polite of languages, is barbarously 
vulgar if compared with the Latin out of 
which it has been corrupted, or even with 
Italian. There is a wider gap, and one 
implying greater boorishness, between 
ministerium and metier, or sapiens and 
sachant, than between druv and drove or 
agin and against, which last is plainly an 
arrant superlative. Our rustic coverlid 
is nearer its French original than the di- 
minutive covert, into which it has been 
ignorantly corrupted in politer speech. 
I obtained from three cultivated English- 
men at different times three diverse pro- 
nunciations of a single word, — cowcum- 
ber, coocumber, and cucumber. Of these 
the first, which is Yankee also, comes 
nearest to the nasality of concombre. Lord 
Ossory assures us that Voltaire saw the 
best society in England, and Voltaire tells 
his countrymen that handkerchief was 
pronounced hankercher. I find it so spelt 
in Hakluyt and elsewhere. This enormity 
the Yankee still persists in, and as there 
is always a reason for such deviations from 
the sound as represented by the spelling, 
may we not suspect two sources of deriva- 
tion, and find an ancestor for kercher in 
eouverture rather than in couvrechefl 



And what greater phonetic vagary (which 
Dryden, by the way, called fegary) in our 
lingua rustica than this ker for couvre 1 
I copy from the fly-leaves of my books 
where I have noted them from time to 
time a few examples of pronunciation and 
phrase which will show that the Yankee 
often has antiquity and very respectable 
literary authority on his side. My list 
might be largely increased by referring to 
glossaries, but to them every one can go 
for himself, and I have gathered enough 
for my purpose. 

I will take first those cases in which 
something like the French sound has been 
preserved in certain single letters and 
diphthongs. And this opens a curious 
question as to how long this Gallicism 
maintained itself in England. Sometimes 
a divergence in pronunciation has given 
us two words with different meanings, as 
in genteel and jaunty, which I find coming 
in toward the close of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, and wavering between genteel and 
jantee. It is usual in America to drop 
the u in words ending in our, — a very 
proper change recommended by Howell 
two centuries ago, and carried out by him 
so far as his printers would allow. This 
and the corresponding changes in musique, 
musick, and the like, which he also advo-. 
cated, shew that in his time the French 
accent indicated by the superfluous letters 
(for French had once nearly as strong an 
accent as Italian) had gone out of use. 
There is plenty of French accent down to 
the end of Elizabeth's reign. In Daniel we 
have riches and counsel', in Bishop Hall 
comet' , chap'elain, in Donne pictures', vir- 
tue , presence', mortal', merit', hainous', 
giant', with many more, and Marston's 
satires are full of them. The two latter, 
however, are not to be relied on, as they 
may be suspected of Chaucerizing. Her- 
rick writes baptime. The tendency to 
throw the accent backward began early. 
But the incongruities are perplexing, and 
perhaps mark the period of transition. In 
Warner's "Albion's England" we have 
creator' and creature' side by side with the 
modern creator and creature. E'niry and 
e'nvying occur in Campion (1602), and yet 
envy' survived Milton. In some cases we 
have gone back again nearer to the French, 
as in revenue for revenue. I had been so 
used to hearing imbecile pronounced with 
the accent on the first syllable, which is in 
accordance with the general tendency in 
such matters, that I was surprised to find 
imbec'ile in a verse of Wordsworth. The 
dictionaries all give it so. I asked a highly 
cultivated Englishman, and he declared 
for imbeceeV. In general it may be as- 



214 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



sumed that accent will finally settle on the 
syllable dictated by greater ease and there- 
fore quickness of utterance. Blasphemous, 
for example, is more rapidly pronounced 
than blasphem'ous, to which our Yankee 
clings, following in this the usage of many 
of the older poets. Amer'ican is easier 
than Ameri'can, and therefore the false 
quantity has carried the day, though the 
true one may be found in George Herbert, 
and even so late as Cowley. 

To come back to the matter in hand. 
Our " uplandish man" retains the soft or 
thin sound of the u in some words, such 
as rule, truth (sometimes also pronounced 
truth, not trooth), while he says noo for 
new, and gives to view and few so inde- 
scribable a mixture of the two sounds with 
a slight nasal tincture that it may be called 
the Yankee shibboleth. Spenser writes 
deow {dew) which can only be pronounced 
with the Yankee nasality. In rule the 
least sound of a precedes the u. I find 
reule in Pecock's " Repressor." He prob- 
ably pronounced it rayoole, as the old 
French word from which it is derived was 
very likely to be sounded at first, with a 
reminiscence of its original regula. Tin- 
dal has rueler, and the Coventry Plays 
have preudent. As for noo, may it not 
claim some sanction in its derivation, 
whether from nouveau or neuf, the an- 
cient sound of which may very well have 
been noof, as nearer novus 1 Beef would 
seem more like to have come from buffe 
than from bceuf, unless the two were mere 
varieties of spelling. The Saxon few may 
have caught enough from its French cousin 
peu to claim the benefit of the same doubt 
as to sound ; and our slang phrase a few 
(as "I licked him a few") may well ap- 
peal to un peu for sense and authority. 
Nay, might not lick itself turn out to be 
the good old word lam in an English dis- 
guise, if the latter should claim descent as, 
perhaps, he fairly might, from the Latin 
lambere ? The New England ferce for 
fierce, and perce for pierce (sometimes 
heard as fairce and pairce), are also Nor- 
man. For its antiquity I cite the rhyme 
of verse and pierce in Chapman and Donne, 
and in some commendatory verses by a 
Mr. Berkenhead before the poems of Fran- 
cis Beaumont. Our pairlous for perilous 
is of the same kind, and is nearer Shake- 
speare's parlous than the modern pronun- 
ciation. One other Gallicism survives in 
our pronunciation. Perhaps I should rather 
call it a semi-Gallicism, for it is the result 
of a futile effort to reproduce a French 
sound with English lips. Thus for joint, 
employ, royal, we have jynt, empty, r'yle, 
the last differing only from rile (roil) in a 



prolongation of the y sound. In Walter 
de Bibles worth I find solives Englished by 
gistes. This, it is true, may have been 
pronounced jeests, but the pronunciation 
jystes must have preceded the present 
spelling, which was no doubt adopted after 
the radical meaning was forgotten, as ana- 
logical with other words in oi. In the 
same way after Norman-French influence 
had softened the I out of would (we already 
find woud for veut in N. F. poems), should 
followed the example, and then an I was 
put into could, where it does not belong, 
to satisfy the logic of the eye, which has 
affected the pronunciation and even the 
spelling of English more than is commonly 
supposed. I meet with eyster for oyster 
as early as the fourteenth century. I find 
dystrye for destroy in the Coventry Plays, 
wage in Bishop Hall and Middleton the 
dramatist, bile in Donne and Chrononho- 
tonthologos, line in Hall, ryall and chyse 
(for choice) in the Coventry Plays. In 
Chapman's "All Fools" is the misprint of 
employ for imply, fairly inferring an iden- 
tity of sound in the last syllable. Indeed, 
this pronunciation was habitual till after 
Pope, and Rogers tells us that the elegant 
Gray said naise for noise just as our rus- 
tics still do. Our cornish (which I find 
also in Herrick) remembers the French 
better than cornice does. While, clinging 
more closely to the Anglo-Saxon in drop- 
ping the g from the end of the present par- 
ticiple, the Yankee now and then pleases 
himself with an experiment in French na- 
sality in words ending in n. It is not, so 
far as my experience goes, very common, 
though it may formerly have been more 
so. Capting, for instance, I never heard 
save in jest, the habitual form being kepp'n. 
But at any rate it is no invention of ours. 
In that delightful old volume, " Ane Com- 
pendious Buke of Godly and Spirituall 
Songs," in which I know not whether the 
piety itself or the simplicity of its expres- 
sion be more charming, I find burding, 
garding, and cousing, and in the State 
Trials uncerting used by a gentleman. I 
confess that I like the n better than the ng. 
Of Yankee preterites I find risse and rize 
for rose in Middleton and Dryden, dim in 
Spenser, chees (chose) in Sir John Man- 
devil, give (gave) in the Coventry Plays, 
shet (shut) in Golding's Ovid,* het in Chap- 
man and in Weever's Epitaphs, thriv and 
smit in Drayton, quit in Ben Jonson and 
Henry More, and pled in the Paston 
Letters, nay, even in the fastidious Lan- 
dor. Rid for rode was. anciently com- 
mon. So likewise was see for saw, but I 

* Cited in Warton's Obs. Faery Q. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



215 



find it in no writer of authority (except 
Golding), unless Chaucer's seie was so 
sounded. Shew is used by Hector Boece, 
Giles Fletcher, Drummond of Hawthorn- 
den, and iii the Paston Letters. Similar 
strong preterites, like snew, thew, and even 
mew, are not without example. I find sew 
for sewed in Piers Ploughman. Indeed, the 
anomalies in English preterites are per- 
plexing. We have probably transferred 
flew iromjlow (as the preterite of which I 
have heard it) to fly because we had another 
preterite in fled. Of weak preterites the 
Yankee retains growed, Mowed, for which 
he has good authority, and less often 
knowed. His sot is merely a broad sound- 
ing of sat, no more inelegant than the com- 
mon got lor gat, which lie further degrades 
into gut. When he says darst, he uses a 
form as old as Chaucer. 

The Yankee has retained something of 
the long sound of the a in such words as 
axe, vjax, pronouncing them exe, wex 
(shortened from aix, waix). He also says 
hev and hed {have, had) for have and had. 
In most cases he follows an Anglo-Saxon 
usage. In aix for axle he certainly does. 
I find wex and aisches (ashes) in Pecock, 
and exe in the Paston Letters. Golding 
rhymes ivax with icexe and spells challenge 
chelenge. Chaucer wrote hendy. Dryden 
rhymes can with men, as Mr. Biglow 
would. Alexander Gill, Milton's teacher, 
in his "Logonomia" cites hez for hath as 
peculiar to Lincolnshire. I find hayth in 
Collier's " Bibliographical Account of Early 
English Literature " under the date 1584, 
and Lord Cromwell so wrote it. Sir Chris- 
topher Wren wrote belcony. Our feet is 
only the 0. F. faict. Thaim for them was 
common in the sixteenth century. W^e 
have an example of the same thing in the 
double form of the verb thrash, thresh. 
While the New-Englander cannot be 
brought to say instead for instid (com- 
monly 'slid where not the last word in a 
sentence), he changes the i into e in red for 
rid, tell for till, hender for hinder, reuse 
for rinse. I find red in the old interlude 
of " Thersytes," tell in a letter of Daborne 
to Henslowe, and also, I shudder to men- 
tion it, in a letter of the great Duchess of 
Marlborough, Atossa herself ! It occurs 
twice in a single verse of the Chester Plays, 

" Tell the day of dome, tell the beames blow." 

From the word blow is formed bloivth, 
which I heard again this summer after a 
long interval. Mr. Wright* explains it as 



* Dictionary of Obsolete 
English. 



and Provincial 



meaning "a blossom." With us a single 
blossom is a blow, while blowth means the 
blossoming in general. A farmer would 
say that there was a good blowth on his 
fruit-trees. The word retreats farther in- 
land and away from the railways, year by 
year. Wither rhymes hinder with slender, 
and Shakespeare and Lovelace have rencJied 
for rinsed. In " Gammer Gurton " is sence 
for since ; Marlborough's Duchess so writes 
it, and Donne rhymes since with Amiens 
and patience, Bishop Hall and Otway with 
pretence, Chapman with citizens, Dryden 
with providence. Indeed, why should not 
sithence take that form? Dryden's wife 
(an earl's daughter) has tell for till, Mar- 
garet, mother of Henry VII., writes seche 
ior such, and our ef finds authority in the 
old form yeffe. 

E sometimes takes the place of u, as 
jedge, tredge, bresh. I find tredge in the 
interlude of "Jack Jugler," bresh in a ci- 
tation by Collier from " London Cries " of 
the middle of the seventeenth century, and 
resche for rush (fifteenth century) in the 
very valuable "Volume of Vocabularies" 
edited by Mr. Wright. Resce is one of the 
Anglo-Saxon forms of the word in Bos- 
worth's A. S . Dictionary. Golding hass/ie£. 
The Yankee always shortens the u in the 
ending ture, making ventur, natur , pictur t 
and so on. This was common, also, among 
the educated of the last generation. I am 
inclined to think it may have been once 
universal, and I certainly think it more 
elegant than the vile vencher, naycher, 
pickcher, that have taken its place, sound- 
ing like the invention of a lexicographer 
with his mouth full of hot pudding. Nash 
in his "Pierce Penniless" has ventur, and 
so spells it, and I meet it also in Spenser, 
Drayton, Ben Jonson, Herrick, and Prior. 
Spenser has torVrest, which can be con- 
tracted only from tortur and not from 
torcher. Quarles rhymes nature with cre- 
ator, and Dryden with satire, which he 
doubtless pronounced according to its older 
form of satyr. Quarles has also torture 
and mortar. Mary Boleyn writes kreatur. 

I shall now give some examples which 
cannot so easily be ranked under any spe- 
cial head. Gill charges the Eastern coum 
ties with ki ver for cover, and ta for to. 
The Yankee pronounces both too and to 
like ta (like the ton in touch) where they 
are not emphatic. When they are, both 
become tu. In old spelling, to is the com- 
mon (and indeed correct) form of too, which 
is only to with the sense of in addition. 
I suspect that the sound of our too has 
caught something from the French tout, 
and it is possible that the old too too is not 
a reduplication, but a reminiscence of the 



216 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



feminine form of the same word (toute) as 
anciently pronounced, with the e not yet 
silenced. Gill gives a Northern origin to 
geaun for gown and waund for icound 
(vulnus). Lovelace has loaund, but there 
is something too dreadful in suspecting 
Spenser (who borealized in his pastorals) 
of having ever been guilty of geaun ! And 
yet some delicate mouths even now are 
careful to observe the Hibemicism of 
ge-ard for guard, and ge-url for girl. Sir 
Philip Sidney (credite posteri !) wrote furr 
for far. I would hardly have believed it 
had I not seen it in facsimile. As some 
consolation, I find furder in Lord Bacon 
and Donne, and Wither rhymes far with 
cur. The Yankee, who omits the final d 
in many words, as do the Scotch, makes 
up for it by adding one in geound. The 
purist does not feel the loss of the d sen- 
sibly in lawn and yon, from the former of 
which it has dropped again after a wrong- 
ful adoption (retained in laundry), while 
it properly belongs to the latter. But 
what shall we make of git, yit, and yis ? 
I find yis and git in Warner's "Albion's 
England," yet rhyming with wit, admit, 
9.nS. fit in Donne, with wit in the "Re- 
venger's Tragedy," Beaumont, and Suck- 
ling, with writ in Dryden, and latest of all 
with wit in Sir Hanbury Williams. Prior 
rhymes fitting and begetting. Worse is to 
come. Among others, Donne rhymes again 
with sin, and Quarles repeatedly with in. 
Ben for been, of which our dear Whittier 
is so fond, has the authority of Sackville, 
"Gammer Gurton" (the work of a bishop), 
Chapman, Dryden, and many more, though 
bin seems to have been the common form. 
Whittier's accenting the first syllable of 
rom'ance finds an accomplice in Drayton 
among others, and though manifestly 
wrong, is analogous with Rom'ans. Of 
other Yankeeisms, whether of form or pro- 
nunciation, whicli I have met with I add a 
few at random. Pecock writes soiodiers 
{sogers, soudoyers), and Chapman and Gill 
sodder. This absorption of the I is com- 
mon in various dialects, especially in the 
Scottish. Pecock writes also biyende, and 
the authors of "Jack Jugler" and "Gam- 
mer Gurton" yender. ^The Yankee in- 
cludes " yon " in the same category, and 
says "hither an' yen," for "to and fro." 
(Cf. German jenseits. ) Pecock and plenty 
more have icrastle. Tindal has agynste, 
gretter, shett, ondone, debyte, and scace. 
"Jack Jugler" has scacely (which I have 
often heard, though skurce is the common 
form), and Donne and Dryden make great 
rhyme with set. In the inscription on 
Ca'x ton's tomb I find ynd for end, which 
the Yankee more often makes eend, still 



using familiarly the old phrase "right 
anend " lor " continuously." His " stret 
(straight) along" in the same sense, which 
I thought peculiar to him, I find in Pecock. 
Tindal's debyte for deputy is so perfectly 
Yankee that I could almost fancy the brave 
martyr to Have been deacon of the First 
Parish at Jaalam Centre. "Jack Jugler " 
further gives us playsent and sa/rtayne. 
Dryden rhymes certain with parting, and 
Chapman and Ben Jonson use certain, as 
the Yankee always does, for certainly. 
The " Coventry Mysteries " have occupied, 
massage, nateralle, mater al {material), 
and meracles, — all excellent Yankeeisms. 
In the "Quatre tils, Aymon" (1504),* is 
vertus for virtuous. Thomas Fuller called 
volume vollum, I suspect, for he spells it 
volumne. However, per contra, Yankees 
habitually say colume for column. In- 
deed, to prove that our ancestors brought 
their pronunciation with them from the 
Old Country, and have not wantonly de- 
based their mother tongue, I need only to 
cite the words scriptur, Israll, athists, and 
cherfulness from Governor Bradford's 
" History." So the good man wrote them, 
and so the good descendants of his fellow- 
exiles still pronounce them. Brampton 
Gurdon writes shet in a letter to W T inthrop. 
Purtend {pretend) has crept like a serpent 
into the "Paradise of Dainty Devices"; 
purvide, which is not so bad, is in Chaucer. 
These, of course, are universal vulgarisms, 
and not peculiar to the Yankee. Butler 
has a Yankee phrase, and pronunciation 
too, in "To which these carr'ings-on did 
tend." Langham or Laneham, who wrote 
an account of the festivities at Kenilworth 
in honor of Queen Bess, and who evidently 
tried to spell phonetically, makes sorrows 
into sororz. Herrick writes hollow for 
halloo, and perhaps pronounced it {hor- 
resco suggerens !) holla, as Yankees do. 
Why not, when it comes from hold, 1 I 
find jfelaschyppe (fellowship) in the Coven- 
try Plays. Spenser and his queen neither 
of them scrupled to write afore, and the 
former feels no inelegance even in chaw 
and idee. 'Fore was common till after 
Herrick. Dryden has do's for does, and 
his wife spells worse wosce. Af eared was 
once universal. Warner has ery for ever a ; 
nay, he also has illy, with which we were 
once ignorantly reproached by persons 
more familiar with Murray's Grammar 
than with English literature. And why 
not illy 1 Mr. Bartlett says it is "a word 
used by writers of an inferior class, who 
do not seem to perceive that ill is itself an 

* Cited in Collier. (I give my authority 
where I do not quote from the original book.) 



INTRODUCTION. 



217 



adverb, without the termination ly," and 
quotes Dr. Messer, President of Brown 
University, as asking triumphantly, " Why 
don't you say welly 1 " I should like to 
have had Dr. Messer answer his own ques- 
tion. It would be truer to say that it was 
used by people who still remembered that 
ill was an adjective, the shortened form of 
evil, out of which Shakespeare ventured to 
make evilly. I find illy in Warner. The 
objection to illy is not an etymological 
one, but simply that it is contrary to good 
usage, — a very sufficient reason. Ill as 
an adverb was at first a vulgarism, pre- 
cisely like the rustic's when he says, " I 
was treated bad." May not the reason of 
this exceptional form be looked for in that 
tendency to dodge what is hard to pro- 
nounce, to which I have already alluded ? 
If the letters were distinctly uttered, as 
they should be, it would take too much 
time to say ill-ly, well-ly, and it is to be 
observed that we have avoided smally* and 
tally in the same way, though we add ish 
to them without hesitation in smallish and 
tall ish. We have, to be sure, dully and 
fully, but for the one we prefer stupidly, 
and the other (though this may have come 
from eliding the y before as) is giving way 
to full. The uneducated, whose utterance 
is slower, still make adverbs when they 
will by adding like to all manner of adjec- 
tives. We have had big charged upon us, 
because we use it where an Englishman 
would now use great. I fully admit that 
it were better to distinguish between them, 
allowing to big a certain contemptuous 
quality ; but as for authority, T want none 
better than that of Jeremy Taylor, who, 
in his noble sermon "On the Return of 
Prayer," speaks of "Jesus, whose spirit 
was meek and gentle up to the greatness 
of the biggest example. " As for our double 
negative, I shall waste no time in quoting 
instances of it, because it was once as uni- 
versal in English as it still is in the neo- 
Latin languages, where it does not strike 
us as vulgar. I am not sure that the loss 
of it is not to be regretted. But surely 
I shall admit the vulgarity of slurring or 
altogether eliding certain terminal conso- 
nants ? I admit that a clear and sharp-cut 
enunciation is one of the crowning charms 
and elegancies of speech. W T ords so ut- 
tered are like coins fresh from the mint, 
compared with the worn and dingy drudges 
of long service, — I do not mean American 
coins, for those look less badly the more 
they lose of their original ugliness. No 
one is more painfully conscious than I of 

* The word occurs in a letter of Mary Boleyn, 
in Golding, and Warner. 



the contrast between the rifle-crack of an 
Englishman's yes and no, and the wet-fuse 
drawl of the same monosyllables in the 
mouths of my countrymen. But I do not 
find the dropping of final consonants disa- 
greeable in Allan Ramsay or Burns, nor do 
I believe that our literary ancestors were 
sensible of that inelegance in the fusing 
them together of which we are conscious. 
How many educated men pronounce 
the t in chestnut 1 how many say pent- 
ise for penthouse, as they should ? When 
a Yankee skipper says that he is "lxran 1 
for Gloster " (not Gloucester, with the leave 
of the Universal Schoolmaster), he but 
speaks like Chaucer or an old ballad-singer, 
though they would have pronounced it 
boon. This is one of the cases where the 
d is surreptitious, and has been added in 
compliment to the verb bind, with which 
it has nothing to do. If Ave consider the 
root of the word (though of course I grant 
that every race has a right to do what it 
will with what is so peculiarly its own as 
its speech), the d has no more right there 
than at the end of gone, where it is often 
put by children, who are our best guides 
to the sources of linguistic corruption, and 
the best teachers of its processes. Crom- 
well, minister of Henry VIII. , writes worle 
for world. Chapman has wan for wand, 
and lawn has rightfully displaced laund, 
though with no thought, I suspect, of ety- 
mology. Rogers tells us that Lady Ba- 
thurst sent him some letters written to 
William III. by Queen Mary, in which 
she addresses him as ' c Dear Husban. " The 
old form expoun", which our farmers use, 
is more correct than the form with a bar- 
barous d tacked on which has taken its 
place. Of the kind opposite to this, like 
our goicnd for gown, and the London cock- 
ney's wind for wine, I find droivnd for 
drown in the "Misfortunes of Arthur" 
(1584), and in Swift. And, by the way, 
whence came the long sound of wind which 
our poets still retain, and which survives 
in "winding" a horn,- a totally different 
word from " winding " a kite-string ? We 
say behind and hinder (comparative), and 
yet to hinder. Shakespeare pronounced 
kind kind, or what becomes of his play on 
that word and kin in Handet ? Nay, did 
he not even (shall I dare to hint it ?) drop 
the final d as the Yankee still does ? John 
Lilly plays in the same way on kindred 
and kindness. But to come to some other 
ancient instances. Warner rhymes bounds 
with croions, grounds with toicns, text with 
sex, vjorst with crust, interrupts with cups; 
Drayton, defects with sex; Chapman, 
amends with cleanse ; Webster, defects 
with checks; Ben Jonson, minds with 



218 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS, 



combines; Marston, trust and obsequious, 
clothes and shows ; Dryden gives the same 
sonnd to clothes, and has also minds with 
designs. Of course, I do not affirm that 
their ears may not have told them that 
these were imperfect rhymes (though I am 
by no means sure even of that), but they 
surely would never have tolerated any such 
had they suspected the least vulgarity in 
them. Prior has the rhyme first and trust, 
but puts it into the mouth of a landlady. 
Swift has stunted and burnt it, an inten- 
tionally imperfect rhyme, no doubt, but 
which I cite as giving precisely the Yankee 
pronunciation of burned. Donne couples 
in unhallowed wedlock after and matter, 
thus seeming to give to both the true Yan- 
kee sound ; and it is not uncommon to find 
after and daughter. Worse than all, in 
one of Dodsley's Old Plays we have onions 
rhyming with minions, — I have tears in 
my eyes while I record it. And yet what 
is viler than the universal Misses {Mrs.) 
for Mistress 1 This was once a vulgarism, 
and in "The Miseries of Inforced Mar- 
riage" the rhyme (printed as prose in 
Dodsley's Old Plays by Collier), 

" To make my young mistress, 
Delighting in kisses," 

is put in the mouth of the clown. Our 
people say Injun for Indian. The ten- 
dency to make this change where i follows 
d is common. The Italian giorno and 
French jour from diurnus are familiar ex- 
amples. And yet Injun is one of those 
depravations which the taste challenges 
peremptorily, though it have the authority 
of Charles Cotton — who rhymes " Indies" 
with "cringes" — and four English lexi- 
cographers, beginning with Dr. Sheridan, 
bid us say invidgeous. Yet after all it is 
no worse than the debasement which all 
our terminations in tion and tience have 
undergone, which yet we hear with resig- 
nashun and payshunce, though it might 
have aroused both impat-i-ence and indig- 
na-ti-on in Shakespeare's time. When 
George Herbert tells us that if the sermon 
be dull, 

" God takes a text and preacheth pati-ence," 

the prolongation of the word seems to con- 
vey some hint at the longanimity of the 
virtue. Consider what a poor curtal we 
have made of Ocean. There was some- 
thing of his heave and expanse in o-ce-an, 
and Fletcher knew how to use it when he 
wrote so fine a verse as the second of these, 
the best deep-sea verse I know, — 

" In desperate storms stem with a little rudder 
The tumbling ruins of the ocean," 



Oceanus was not then wholly shorn of his 
divine proportions, and our modern oshun 
sounds like the gush of small-beer in com- 
parison. Some other contractions of ours 
have a vulgar air about them. More 'n for 
more than, as one of the worst, may stand 
for a type of such. Yet our old dramatists 
are full of such obscurations (elisions they 
can hardly be called) of the th, making 
wheW of whether, bro'r of brother, smo'r of 
smother, moW of mother, and so on. In- 
deed, it is this that explains the word rare 
(which has Dryden's support), and which 
we say of meat where an Englishman would 
use underdone. I do not believe, with the 
dictionaries, that it had ever anything to 
do with the Icelandic hrar (raw), as it 
plainly has not in rareripe, which means 
earlier ripe. And I do not believe it, for 
this reason, that the earlier form of the 
word with us was, and the commoner now 
in the inland parts still is, so far as I can 
discover, raredone. Golding has "egs 
reere-rosted." I find rather as a monosyl- 
lable in Donne, and still better, as giving 
the sound, rhyming with fair in Warner. 
There is an epigram of Sir Thomas Browne 
in which the words rather than make 
a monosyllable : 

"What furie is 't to take Death's part 
And rather than by Nature, die by Art ! " 

The contraction more 'n I find in the old 
play " Fuimus Troes," in a verse where 
the measure is so strongly accented as to 
leave it beyond doubt, — 

"A golden crown whose heirs 
More than half the world subdue." 

It may be, however, that the contraction is 
in "th' orld." It is unmistakable in the 
" Second Maiden's Tragedy" : — 

"It were but folly, 
Dear soul, to boast of more than I can perform." 

Is our gin for given more violent than 
mar'l for marvel, which was once common, 
and which I find as late as Herrick ? Nay, 
Herrick has gin (spelling it g'en), too, as 
do the Scotch, who agree with us likewise 
in preferring chimly to chimney. 

I will now leave pronunciation and turn 
to words or phrases which have been sup- 
posed peculiar to us, only pausing to pick 
up a single dropped stitch, in the pronun- 
ciation of the word sup' r erne, which I had 
thought native till I found it in the well- 
languaged Daniel. I will begin with a 
word of which I have never met with any 
example in print. We express the first 
stage of withering in a green plant sudden- 



INTRODUCTION. 



219 



ly cut down by the verb to wilt. It is, of 
course, own cousin of the German ivelken, 
but I have never come upon it in print, 
and my own books of reference give me 
faint help. Graff gives welkin, marcescere, 
and refers to weih (weak), and conjectur- 
ally to A. S. hvelan. The A. S. wealwian 
(to wither) is nearer, but not so near as 
two words in the Icelandic, which perhaps 
put us gh the track of its ancestry, — velgi 
tepefacere (and reiki, with the derivative) 
meaning contaminare. Wilt, at any rate, 
is a good word, tilling, as it does, a sensible 
gap between drooping and withering, and 
the imaginative phrase " he wilted right 
down," like "he caved right in," is a true 
Americanism. Wilt occurs in English pro- 
vincial glossaries, but is explained by 
wither, which with us it does not mean. 
We have a few words such as cache, cohog, 
carry (portage), shoot (chute), timber (for- 
est), bushwhack (to pull a boat along by 
the bushes on the edge of a stream), buck- 
eye (a picturesque word for the horse-chest- 
nut) ; but how many can we be said to 
have fairly brought into the language, as 
Alexander Gill, who first mentions Ameri- 
canisms, meant it when he said, " Sed et ab 
Americanis nonnulla mutuamur ut maiz 
et ca^OA " ? Very few, I suspect, and 
those mostly by borrowing from the 
French, German, Spanish, or Indian. 
"The Dipper" for the "Great Bear" 
strikes me as having a native air. Bogus, 
in the sense of worthless, is undoubtedly 
ours, but is, I more than suspect, a corrup- 
tion of the French bagasse (from low Latin 
baga.sea), which travelled up the Missis- 
sippi from New Orleans, where it was used 
for the refuse of the sugar-cane. It is true, 
we have modified the meaning of some 
words. We use freshet in the sense of 
flood, for which I have not chanced upon 
any authority. Our New England cross 
between Ancient Pistol and Dugald Dal- 
getty, Captain Underhill, uses the word 
(1638 ) to mean a current, and I do not 
recollect it elsewhere in that sense. I 
therefore leave it with a I for future ex- 
plorers. Crick for creek I find in Captain 
John Smith and in the dedication of Ful- 
ler's "Holy Warre," and run, meaning a 
small stream, in Waymouth's "Voyage" 
(1605). Humans for me??, which Mr. Bart- 
lett includes in his "Dictionary of Ameri- 
canisms," is Chapman's habitual phrase in 
his translation of Homer. I find it also 
in the old play of " The Hog hath lost his 
Pearl." Dogs for andirons is still current 
in New England, and in Walter de Bibles- 
worth I find chiens glossed in the margin 
by andirons. Gunning for shooting is in 
Drayton. We once got credit for the po- 



etical word fall for autumn, but Mr. Bart- 
lett and the last edition of Webster's Dic- 
tionary refer us to Dryden. It is even 
older, for I find it in Drayton, and Bishop 
Hall has autumn fall. Middleton plays 
upon the word : " May'st thou have a rea- 
sonable good spring, for thou art like to 
have many dangerous foul falls.'" Daniel 
does the same, and Coleridge uses it as we 
do. Gray uses the archaism picked for 
peaked, and the word smudge (as our 
backwoodsmen do) for a smothered fire. 
Lord Herbert of Cherbury (more prop- 
erly perhaps than even Sidney, the last 
preux chevalier ) has "the Emperor's folks " 
just as a Yankee would say it. Loan for 
lend, with which we have hitherto been 
blackened, I must retort upon the mother 
island, for it appears so long ago as in 
"Albion's England." Fleshy, in the sense 
of stout, may claim Ben Jonson's warrant. 
Chore is also Jonson's word, and I am 
inclined to prefer it to chare and char, be- 
cause I think that I see a more natural 
origin for it in the French jour — whence 
it might come to mean a day's work, and 
thence a job — than anywhere else. At 
onst for at once I thought a corruption of 
our own, till I found it in the Chester 
Plays. I am now inclined to suspect it 
no corruption at all, but only an erratic 
and obsolete superlative at onest. To 
progress' was flung in our teeth till 
Mr. Pickering retorted with Shakespeare's 
"doth pro'gress down thy cheeks." I 
confess that I was never satisfied with 
this answer, because the accent was differ- 
ent, and because the word might here be 
reckoned a substantive quite as well as 
a verb. Mr. Bartlett (in his dictionary 
above cited) adds a surrebutter in a verse 
from Ford's "Broken Heart." Here the 
word is clearly a verb, but with the accent 
unhappily still on the first syllable. Mr. 
Bartlett says that he "cannot say whether 
the word was used in Bacon's time or 
not." It certainly was, and with the ac- 
cent we give to it. Ben Jonson, in the 
"'Alchemist," has this verse, 

"Progress' so from extreme unto extreme," 

and Sir Philip Sidney, 

"Progressing then from fair Turias' golden 
place. " 

Surely we may now sleep in peace, and 
our English cousins will forgive us, since 
we have cleared ourselves from any suspi- 
cion of originality in the matter ! Poor 
for lean, thirds for dower, and dry for 
thirsty I find in Middleton's plays. Dry 
is also in Skelton and in the "World" 



220 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



(1754). In a note on Middleton, Mr. 
Dyce thinks it needful to explain the 
phrase / can't tell (universal in America) 
by the gloss I could not say. Middleton 
also uses snecked, which J had believed an 
Americanism till I saw it there. It is, of 
course, only another form of snatch, analo- 
geous to theek and thatch (cf. the proper 
names Dekker and Thacher), break {brack) 
and breach, make (still common with us) 
and match. 'Long on for occasioned by 
("avIio is this 'long on?") occurs likewise 
in Middleton. 'Cause why is in Chaucer. 
Raising (an English version of the French 
leaven) for yeast is employed by Gayton 
in his "Festivous Notes on Don Quixote." 
I have never seen an instance of our New 
England word emptins in the same sense, 
nor can I divine its original. Gayton has 
limekill ; also skids for shutters, and the 
latter is used by Mrs. Hutchinson in her 
' * Life of Colonel Hutchinson." Bishop 
Hall, and Purchas in his " Pilgrims," have 
chist for chest, and it is certainly nearer 
cista, as well as to its form in the Teu- 
tonic languages, whence probably we got 
it. We retain the old sound in cist, but 
chest is as old as Chaucer. Lovelace says 
wropt for wrapt. " Musieianer " I had al- 
ways associated with the militia-musters 
of my boyhood, and too hastily concluded 
it an abomination of our own, but Mr. 
Wright calls it a Norfolk word, and I find 
it to be as old as 1642 by an extract in 
Collier. "Not worth the time of day" 
had passed with me for native till I saw 
it in Shakespeare's " Pericles." For slick 
(which is only a shorter sound of sleek, 
like crick and the now universal britches 
for breeches) I will only call Chapman 
and Jonson. "That 's a sure card ! " and 
"That's a stinger!" both sound like 
modern slang, but you will find the one 
in the old interlude of "Thersytes" (1537), 
and the other in Middleton. "Right 
here" a favorite phrase with our orators 
and with a certain class of our editors, 
turns up passim in the Chester and Cov- 
entry plays. Mr. Dickens found some- 
thing very ludicrous in what he considered 
our neologism right away. But I find a 
phrase very like it, and which I would 
gladly suspect to be a misprint for it, in 
" Gammer Gurton " : — 

'■' Lyght it and bring it tite away." 

After all, what is it but another form 
of straightway $ Cusseclness, meaning 
wickedness, malignity, and cuss, a sneak- 
ing, ill-natured fellow, in such phrases as 
"He done it out o' pure cussedness," and 
" He is a nateral cuss," have been com- 



monly thought Yankeeisms. To vent cer- 
tain contemptuously indignant moods they 
are admirable in their rough-and-ready 
way. But neither is our own. Cursyd- 
nesse, in the same sense of malignant 
wickedness, occurs in the Coventry Plays, 
and cuss may perhaps claim to have come 
in with the Conqueror. At least the term 
is also French. Saint Simon uses it and 
confesses its usefulness. Speaking of the 
Abbe Dubois, he says, " Qui etoit en 
plein ce qu'un mauvais francois appelle un 
sacre, mais qid ne se pent guere exprimer 
autrement." " Not worth a cuss," though 
supported by "not wofth a damn," may 
be a mere corruption, since " not worth a 
cress" is in "Piers Ploughman." "I 
don't see it" was the popular slang a 
year or two ago, and seemed to spring 
from the soil ; but no, it is in Gib- 
ber's " Careless Husband." Green sauce 
for vegetables I meet in Beaumont and 
Fletcher, Gayton, and elsewhere. Our 
rustic pronunciation sahce (for either the 
diphthong au was anciently pronounced ah, 
or else we have followed abundant analogy 
in changing it to the latter sound, as we 
have in chance, dance, and so many more) 
may be the older one, and at least gives 
some hint at its ancestor salsa. Warn, 
in the sense of notify, is, I believe, now 
peculiar to us, but Pecock so employs it. 
To cotton to is, I rather think, an Ameri- 
canism. The nearest approach to it I have 
found is cotton together, in Congreve's 
" Love for Love." To cotton or cotten, in 
another sense, is old and common. Our 
word means to cling, and its origin, pos- 
sibly, is to be sought in another direction, 
perhaps in A. S. cvead, which means mud, 
clay (both proverbially clinging), or better 
yet, in the Icelandic qvoda (otherwise 
kod), meaning resin and glue, which are 
kclt igoxyv sticky substances. To spit cot- 
ton is, I think, American, and also, per- 
haps, to flax for to beat. To the halves 
still survives among us, though apparently 
obsolete in England. It means either to 
let or to hire a piece of land, receiving half 
the profit in money or in kind {partibus 
locare). I mention it because in a note 
by some English editor, to which I have 
lost my reference, I have seen it wrongly 
explained. The editors of Nares cite Bur- 
ton. To put, in the sense of to go, as Put ! 
for Begone! would seem our own, and yet 
it is strictly analogous to the French se 
mettre a la vote, and the Italian meitersi in 
via. Indeed, Dante has a verse, 

" Io sarei [for mi sarei] gia messo per lo sentiero" 

which, but for the indignity, might be 
translated, 



INTRODUCTION. 



221 



" I should, ere this, have put along the way. " 

I deprecate in advance any share in 
General Banks's notions of international 
law, but we may all take a just pride in 
his exuberant eloquence as something 
distinctively American. When he spoke a 
few years ago of " letting the Union slide," 
even those who, for political purposes, re- 
proached him with the sentiment, admired 
the indigenous virtue of his phrase. Yet 
I lind " let the world slide " in Heywood's 
" Edward IV."; and in Beaumont and 
Fletcher's "Wit without Money" Valen- 
tine says, 

"Will you go drink, 
And let the world slide? " 

So also in Sidney's A rcadia, 

" Let his dominion slide." 

In the one case it is put into the mouth of 
a clown, in the other, of a gentleman, and 
was evidently proverbial. It has even 
higher sanction, for Chaucer writes, 

" Well nigh all other cures let he slide." 

Mr. Bartlett gives "above one's bend" as 
an Americanism ; but compare Hamlet's 
"to the top of my bent." In his tracks 
for immediately has acquired an American 
accent, and passes where he can for a 
native, but is an importation nevertheless ; 
for w r hat is he but the Latin e vestigio, or 
at best the Norman French ene slespas, 
both which have the same meaning ? Hot- 
foot (provincial also in England), I find in 
the old romance of "Tristan," 

"Si s'en parti chaut pas." 

Like for as is never used in New England, 
but is universal in the South and West. 
It has on its side the authority of two 
kings {ego sum rex Romanorum et supra 
grammaticam), Henry VIII. and Charles 
I. This were ample, without throwing 
into the scale the scholar and poet Daniel. 
Them was used as a nominative by the 
majesty of Edward VI., by Sir P. Hoby, 
and by Lord Paget (in Fronde's "His- 
tory"). I have never seen any passage 
adduced where guess w r as used as the 
Yankee uses it. The word was familiar in 
the mouths of our ancestors, but with a dif- 
ferent shade of meaning from that we have 
given it, which is something like rather 
think, though the Yankee implies a confi- 
dent certainty by it when he says, ' ' I 
guess I du I " There are two examples in 
Otway, one of which (" So in the struggle, 
I guess the note was lost") perhaps might 
serve our purpose, and Coleridge's 

" I guess 't was fearful there to see " 



certainly comes very near. But I have 
a higher authority than either in Selden, 
who, in one of his notes to the "Polyol- 
bion," writes, "The first inventor of them 
(T guess you dislike not the addition) was 
one Berthold Swartz." Here he must 
mean by it, "I take it for granted." 
Another peculiarity almost as prominent 
is the beginning sentences, especially in 
answer to questions, with "well." Put 
before such a phrase as " How d'e do ? " it 
is commonly short, and has the sound of 
imd, but in reply it is deliberative, and 
the various shades of meaning which can 
be conveyed by difference, of intonation, 
and by prolonging or abbreviating-, I should 
vainly attempt to describe. I have heard 
ooa-ahl, wahl, ahl, wdl, and something 
nearly approaching the sound of the le in 
able. Sometimes before " I " it dwindles 
to a mere I, as " '1 / dunno." A friend of 
mine (why should I not please myself, 
though I displease him, by brightening 
my page with the initials of the most ex- 
quisite of humorists, J. H. ?) told me that 
he once heard five "wells," like pioneers, 
precede the answer to an inquiry about 
the price of land. The first was the 
ordinary vjuI, in deference to custom ; 
the second, the long, perpending ooahl, 
with a falling inflection of the voice ; the 
third, the same, but with the voice rising, 
as if in despair of a conclusion, into a 
plaintively nasal whine ; the fourth, wulh, 
ending in the aspirate of a sigh ; and 
then, fifth, came a short, sharp wal, show- 
ing that a conclusion had been reached. 
I have used this latter form in the " Biglow 
Papers," because, if enough nasality be 
added, it represents most nearly the aver- 
age sound of what I may call the interjec- 
tion. 

A locution prevails in the Southern and 
Middle States which is so curious that, 
though never heard in New England, I 
will give a few lines to its discussion, the 
more readily because it is extinct else- 
where. I mean the use of alloio in the 
sense of affirm, as " I allow that 's a good 
horse." I find the word so used in 
1558 by Anthony Jenkinson in Hakluyt : 
"Come they soAve not, neither doe eate 
any bread, mocking the Christians for 
the same, and disabling our strengthe, say- 
ing we live by eating the toppe of a weede, 
and drinke a drinke made of the same, 
alloioing theyr great devouring of flesh 
and drinking of milke to be the increase 
of theyr strength." That is, they under- 
valued our strength, and affirmed their 
own to be the result of a certain diet. In 
another passage of the same narrative 
the word has its more common meaning 



222 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



of approving or praising : " The said king, 
much allowing this declaration, said." 
Ducange quotes Bracton sub voce adlo- 
CARE for the meaning "to admit as 
proved," and the transition from this to 
r affirm " is by no means violent. At the 
same time, when we consider some of the 
meanings of alloiv in old English, and of 
allouer in old French, and also remember 
that the verbs prize and praise are from 
one root, I think we must admit allau- 
dare to a share in the paternity of allow. 
The sentence from Hakluyt would read 
equally well, "contemning our strengthe, 
.... and praising (or valuing) their great 
eating of flesh as the cause of their increase 
in strength." After all, if we confine our- 
selves to allocare, it may turn out that 
the word was somewhere and somewhen 
used for to bet, analogously to put up, put 
down, post (cf. Spanish apostar), and the 
like. I hear boys in the street continually 
saying, "I bet that's a good horse," or 
what not, meaning by no means to risk 
anything beyond their opinion in the 
matter. 

The word improve, in the sense of ei to 
occupy, make use of, employ," as Dr. 
Pickering defines it, he long ago proved 
to be no neologism. He would have done 
better, I think, had he substituted profit 
by for employ. He cites Dr. Franklin as 
saying that the word had never, so far as 
he knew, been used in New England 
before he left it in 1723, except in 
Dr. Mather's "Remarkable Providences," 
which he oddly calls a "very old book." 
Franklin, as Dr. Pickering goes on to 
show, was mistaken. Mr. Bartlett in his 
" Dictionary " merely abridges Pickering. 
Both of them should have confined the 
application of the word to material things, 
its extension to which is all that is peculiar 
in the supposed American use of it. For 
surely "Complete Letter- Writers " have 
been " improving this opportunity" time 
out of mind. I will illustrate the word a 
little further, because Pickering cites no 
English authorities. Skelton has a pas- 
sage in his "Phyllyp Sparowe," which I 
quote the rather as it contains also the 
word alloioed, and as it distinguishes im- 
prove from employ : — 

" His [Chaucer's] Englysh well alowed, 
So as it is envrowed, 
For as it is enployd, 
There is no English voyd." 

Here the meaning is to profit by. In 
Fuller's "Holy Warre" (1647), we have 
"The Egyptians standing on the firm 
ground, were thereby enabled to improve 
and enforce their darts to the utmost." 



Here the word might certainly mean to 
make use of. Mrs. Hutchinson (Life of 
Colonel H. ) uses the word in the same 
way : " And therefore did not emproove his 
interest to engage the country in the 
quarrell." Swift in one of his letters says : 
" There is not an acre of land in Ireland 
turned to half its advantage ; yet it is 
better improved, than the people." I find 
it also in, "Strength out of Weakness" 
(1652), and Plutarch's "Morals" (1714), 
but I know of only one example of its 
use in the purely American sense, and that 
is, "a very good improvement for a mill" 
in the "State Trials" (Speech of the 
Attorney-General in the Lady Ivy's case, 
1684). In the sense of employ, I could 
cite a dozen old English authorities. 

In running over the fly-leaves of those 
delightful folios for this reference, I find 
a note which reminds me of another word, 
for our abuse of which we have been de- 
servedly ridiculed. I mean lady. It is 
true I might cite the example of the Italian 
donna* {domina), which has been treated 
in the same way by a whole nation, and 
not, as lady among us, by the uncultivated 
only. It perhaps grew into use in the 
half-democratic republics of Italy in the 
same way and for the same reasons as with 
us. But I admit that our abuse of the 
word is villanous. I know of an orator who 
once said in a public meeting where bon- 
nets preponderated, that " the ladies were 
last at the cross and first at the tomb " ! 
But similar sins were committed before our 
day and in the mother country. In the 
" State Trials " I learn of " a gentlewoman 
that lives cook with " such a one, and I 
hear the Lord High Steward speaking of 
the wife of a waiter at a bagnio as a gentle- 
ivomanf From the same authority, by 
the way, I can state that our vile habit of 
chewing tobacco had the somewhat un- 
savory example of Titus Oates, and I 
know by tradition from an eyewitness 
that the elegant General Burgoyne partook 
of the same vice. Howell, in one of his 
letters (dated 26 August, 1623,) speaks 
thus of another " institution " which many 
have thought American: "They speak 
much of that boisterous Bishop of Halver- 
stadt (for so they term him here), that, 
having taken a place wher ther were two 
Monasteries of Nuns and Friers, he caus'd 
divers feather-beds to be rip'd, and all the 
feathers to be thrown in a great Hall, 
whither the Nuns and Friers were thrust 
naked with their bodies oil'd and pitch'd, 
and to tumble among the feathers. " How- 

* Dame, in English, is a decayed gentle- 
woman of the same family. 



INTRODUCTION. 



223 



ell speaks as if the thing were new to him, 
and I know not if the " boisterous " Bishop 
was the inventor of it, but I find it prac- 
tised in England before our Revolution. 

Before leaving the subject, I will add a 
few comments made from time to time 
on the margin of Mr. Bartlett's excellent 
"Dictionary," to which I am glad thus 
publicly to acknowledge my many obliga- 
tions. " Avails " is good old English, and 
the vails of Sir Joshua Reynolds's porter 
are famous. Averse from, averse to, and 
in connection with them the English vul- 
garism "different to." The corrupt use 
of to in these cases, as well as in the Yan- 
kee "he lives to Salem," "to home," and 
others, must be a very old one, for in the 
one case it plainly arose from confounding 
the two French prepositions a (from Latin 
ad and ab), and in the other from trans- 
latin g the first of them. I once thought 
"different to" a modern vulgarism, and 
Mr. Thackeray, on my pointing it out to 
him in " Henry Esmond," confessed it to 
be an anachronism. Mr. Bartlett refers 
to " the old writers quoted in Richardson's 
Dictionary" for "different to," though in 
my edition of that work all the examples 
are with from. But I find to used invaria- 
bly by Sir R. Hawkins in Hakluyt. Banjo 
is a negro corruption of 0. E. bandore. 
Bind-weed can hardly be modern, for 
wood-bind is old and radically right, inter- 
twining itself through bindan and luindan 
with classic stems. Bobolink: is this a 
contraction for Bob o' Lincoln ? I find 
bobolynes, in one of the poems attributed 
to Skelton, where it may be rendered 
giddy -pate, a term very fit for the bird in 
his ecstasies. Cruel for great is in Hak- 
luyt. Bowling-alley is in Nash's "Pierce 
Pennilesse." Curious, meaning nice, oc- 
curs continually in old writers, and is as 
old as Pecock's "Repressor." Droger 
is 0. E. drugger. Educational is in 
Burke. Feeze is only a form of fizz. To 
fix, in the American sense, I find used by 
the Commissioners of the United Colonies 
so early as 1675, " their arms well fixed 
and fit for service." To take the foot in 
the hand is German ; so is to go under. 
Gundalow is old : I find gundelo in Hak- 
luvt, and gundello in Booth's reprint of the 
foiio Shakespeare of 1623. Gonoff Is 0. E. 
gnoffe. Heap is in "Piers Ploughman" 
( "and other names an heep "), and in Hak- 
luyt (" seeing such &heap of their enemies 
ready to devour them"). To liquor is 
in the " Puritan " ( " call 'em in, and liquor 
'em a little"). To loaf : this, I think, is 
unquestionably German. Laufen is pro- 
nounced lofen in some parts of Germany, 
and I once heard one German student say 



to another, Ich lauf (lofe) hier bis du 
wiederkehrest, and he began accordingly 
to saunter up and down, in short, to loaf 
To mull, Mr. Bartlett says, means "to 
soften, to dispirit," and quotes from "Mar- 
garet," — "There has been a pretty consid- 
erable mulhn going on among the doc- 
tors," — where it surely cannot mean what 
he says it does. We have always heard 
mulling used for stirring, bustling, some- 
times in an underhand way. It is a meta- 
phor derived probably from mulling wine, 
and the word itself must be a corruption 
of mell, from 0. F. mesler. Pair of stairs 
is in Hakluyt. To pull up stakes is in 
Curwen's Journal, and therefore pre-Rev- 
olutionary. I think I have met with it 
earlier. Raise : under this word Mr. 
Bartlett omits "to raise a house," that is, 
the frame of a wooden one, aiid also the 
substantive formed from it, a raisin*. Re- 
tire for go to bed is in Fielding's "'Amelia." 
Setting-poles cannot be new, for I find 
"some set [the boats] with long poles" 
in Hakluyt. Shoulder-hitters : I find that 
shoulder- striker is old, though I have lost 
the reference to my authority. Snag is 
no new word, though perhaps the Western 
application of it is so ; but I find in 
Gill the proverb, " A bird in the bag is 
worth two on the snag." Dryden has 
swop and to rights. Trail : Hakluyt 
has "many wayes tilled by the wilde 
beastes." 

I subjoin a few phrases not in Mr. Bart- 
lett's book which I have heard. Bald- 
headed: " to go it bald-headed " ; in great 
haste, as where one rushes out without his 
hat. Bogue : "I don't git much done 
'thout I bogue right in along 'th my men." 
Carry : a portage. Cat-nap : a short doze. 
Cat-stich: a small stick. Choivder-head : 
a muddle-brain. Cling-john : a soft cake 
of rye. Cocoa-nut : the head. Cohees' : 
applied to the people of certain settle- 
ments in Western Pennsylvania, from their 
use of the archaic form Quo'' he. Dun- 
now' z I know : the nearest your true 
Yankee ever comes to acknowledging igno- 
rance. Essence -pedler : a skunk. First- 
rate and a half. Fish-flakes, for drying 
fish : 0. E. fleck (cratis). G ander -party : 
a social gathering of men only. Gavmi- 
cus : a dolt. Hawkins's whetstone : rum ; 
in derision of one Hawkins, a well-known 
temperance-lecturer. Hyper : to bustle : 
" I mus' hyper about an' git tea." Keeler- 
tub : one in which dishes are washed. 
("And Greasy Joan doth keel the pot.") 
Lap-tea : where the guests are too many to 
sit at table. Last of pea-time : to be hard- 
up. Lose-laid (loose-laid) : a weaver's 
term, and probably English ; weak-willed. 



224 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Malahach: to cut up hastily or awk- 
wardly. Moonglade : a beautiful word : 
for the track of moonlight on the water. 
Off-ox : an unmanageable, cross-grained 
fellow. Old Driver, Old Splitfoot ; the 
Devil. Onhitch : to pull trigger (cf. Span- 
ish disparar). Popular: conceited. Rote: 
sound of surf before a storm. Rot-gut : 
cheap whiskey ; the word occurs in Hey- 
wood's " English Traveller " and Addison's 
"Drummer," for a poor kind of drink. 
Seem: it is habitual with the New-Eng- 
lander to put this verb to strange uses, as, 
" I can't seem to be suited," " I could n't 
seem to know him." Sidehill, for hill- 
side. State-house : this seems an Ameri- 
canism, whether invented or derived from 
the Dutch Stadhuys, I know not. Strike 
and string : from the game of ninepins ; 
to make a strike is to knock down all the 
pins with one ball, hence it has come to 
mean fortunate, successful. Swampers : 
men who break out roads for lumberers. 
Tormented : euphemism for damned, as, 
"not a tormented cent." Virginia fence, 
to make a : to walk like a drunken man. 

It is always worth while to note down 
the erratic words or phrases which one 
meets with in any dialect. They may 
throw light on the meaning of other words, 
on the relationship of languages, or even on 
history itself. In so composite a language 
as ours they often supply a different form 
to express a different shade of meaning, 
as in viol and fiddle, thrid and thread, 
smother and smoulder, where the I has crept 
in by a false analogy with would. We 
have given back to England the excel- 
lent adjective lengthy, formed honestly like 
earthy, drouthy, and others, thus enabling 
their journalists to characterize our Presi- 
dent's messages by a word civilly compro- 
mising between long and tedious, so as not 
to endanger the peace of the two countries 
by wounding our national sensitiveness to 
British criticism. Let me give two curious 
examples of the antiseptic property of 
dialects at which I have already glanced. 
Dante has dindi as a childish or low word 
for danari (money), and in Shropshire 
small Roman coins are still dug up which 
the peasants call dinders. This can hard- 
ly be a chance coincidence, but seems 
rather to carry the word back to the 
Roman soldiery. So our farmers say 
chuk, chuk, to their pigs, and ciacco is 
one of the Italian words for hog. When 
a countryman tells us that he ''fell all of 
a heap," I cannot help thinking that he 
unconsciously points to an affinity be- 
tween our word tumble, and the Latin 
tumulus, that is older than most others. 
I believe that words, or even the mere 



intonation of them, have an astonishing 
vitality and power of propagation by the 
root, like the gardener's pest, quitch- 
grass,* while the application or combina- 
tion of them may be new. It is in these 
last that my countrymen seem to me full 
of humor, invention, quickness of wit, and 
that sense of subtle analogy which needs 
only refining to become fancy and imagi- 
nation. Prosaic as American life seems 
in many of its aspects to a European, bleak 
and bare as it is on the side of tradition, 
and utterly orphaned of the solemn inspira- 
tion of antiquity, I cannot help thinking 
that the ordinary talk of unlettered men 
among us is fuller of metaphor and of 
phrases that suggest lively images than 
that of any other people I have seen. 
Very many such will be found in Mr. 
Bartlett's book, though his short list of 
proverbs at the end seem to me, with one 
or two exceptions, as un-American as pos- 
sible. Most of them have no character at 
all but coarseness, and are quite too long- 
skirted for working proverbs, in which 
language always " takes off its coat to it," 
as a Yankee would say. There are plenty 
that have a more native and puckery 
flavor, seedlings from the old stock often, 
and yet new varieties. One hears such 
not seldom among us Easterners, and the 
West would yield many more. "Mean 
enough to steal acorns from a blind hog" ; 
" Cold as the north side of a Jenooary 
gravestone by starlight" ; " Hungry as a 
graven image"; "Pop'lar as a hen with 
one chicken" ; "A hen's time ain't much" ; 
" Quicker 'n greased lightnin' " ; " Ther 's 
sech a thing ez bein' tu" (our Yankee par- 
aphrase of /u.T?Se ayav) ; hence the phrase 
tooirt round, meaning a supererogatory 
activity like that of flies ; " Stingy enough 
to skim his milk at both eends" ; "Hot as 
the Devil's kitchen " ; " Handy as a pocket 
in a shirt " ; " He 's a whole team and the 
dog under the wagon" ; "All deacons are 
good, but there's odds in deacons" (to dea- 
con berries is to put the largest atop) ; " So 
thievish they hev to take in their stone 
walls nights " ;* may serve as specimens. 
"I take my tea barfoot" said a back- 
woodsman when asked if he would have 
cream and sugar. (I find bar foot, by the 
way, in the Coventry Plays.) A man 
speaking to me once of a very rocky 
clearing said, "Stone 's got a pretty heavy 
mortgage on that land," and I overheard 

* Which, whether in that form, or under ifr? 
aliases icitch-gr&ss and coocft-grass, points us 
back to its original Saxon quick. 

t And, by the way, the Yankee never says 
" o' nights," but uses the older adverbial form, 
analogous to the German nachts. 



INTRODUCTION. 



225 



a guide in the woods say to his compan- 
ions who were urging him to sing, " Wal, 
I did sing once, but toons gut invented, an' 
thet spilt my trade." Whoever has driven 
over a stream by a bridge made of slabs 
will feel the picturesque force of the epi- 
thet slab-bridged applied to a fellow of 
shaky character. Almost every county 
has some good die-sinker in phrase, whose 
mintage passes into the currency of the 
wholeneighborhood. Such a one described 
the county jail (the one stone building 
where all the dwellings are of wood) as 
"the house whose underpinnin' come up 
to the eaves," and called hell " the place 
where they didn't rake up their fires 
nights." I once asked a stage-driver if 
the other side of a hill were as steep as 
the one we were climbing : " Steep ? chain 
lightniu' could n' go down it 'thout puttin' 
the shoe on ! " And this brings me back 
to the exaggeration of which I spoke be- 
fore. To me there is something very tak- 
ing in the negro "so black that charcoal 
made a chalk-mark on him," and the 
wooden shingle "painted so like marble 
that it sank in water," as if its very con- 
sciousness or its vanity had been over- 
persuaded by the cunning of the painter. 
I heard a man, in order to give a notion 
of some very cold weather, say to another 
that a certain Joe, who had been taking 
mercury, found a lump of quicksilver in 
each boot, when he went home to dinner. 
This power of rapidly dramatizing a dry 
fact into flesh and blood, and the vivid 
conception of Joe as a human thermom- 
eter, strike me as showing a poetic sense 
that may be refined into faculty. At 
any rate there is humor here, and not 
mere quickness of wit, — the deeper and 
not the shallower quality. The tendency 
of humor is always towards overplus of 
expression, while the very essence of wit 
is its logical precision. Captain Basil 
Hall denied that our people had any 
humor, deceived, perhaps, by their gravity 
of manner. But this very seriousness is 
often the outward sign of that humorous 
quality of the mind which delights in 
rinding an element of identity in things 
seemingly the most incongruous, and then 
again in forcing an incongruity upon things 
identical. Perhaps Captain 'Hall had no 
humor himself, and if so he would never 
find it. Did he always feel the point of 
what was said to himself? I doubt it, 
because I happen to know a chance he 
once had given him in vain. The Captain 
was walking up and down the veranda of 
a country tavern in Massachusetts while 
the coach changed horses. A thunder- 
storm was going on, and, with that pleas- 
16 



ant European air of indirect self-compli- 
ment in condescending to be surprised by 
American merit, which we find so concili- 
ating, he said to a countryman lounging 
against the door, "Pretty heavy thunder 
you have here." The other, who had di- 
vined at a glance his feeling of generous 
concession to a new country, drawled 
gravely, "Waal, we du, considerin' the 
number of inhabitants." This, the more 
I analyze it, the more humorous does it 
seem. The same man was capable of wit 
also, when he would. He was a cabinet- 
maker, and was once employed to make 
some commandment-tables for the parish 
meeting-house. The parson, a very old 
man, annoyed him by looking into his 
workshop every morning, and cautioning 
him to be very sure to pick out "clear 
mahogany without any knots in it." At 
last, wearied out, he retorted one day : 
" Wal, Dr. B., I guess ef I was to leave 
the nots out o' some o' the c'man'ments, 
't 'ould soot you full ez wal ! " 

If I had taken the pains to write down 
the proverbial or pithy phrases I have 
heard, or if I had sooner thought of noting 
the Yankeeisms I met with in my reading, 
I might have been able to do more justice 
to my theme. But I have done all I 
wished in respect to pronunciation, if I 
have proved that where we are vulgar, we 
have the countenance of very good com- 
pany. For, as to the jus et norma, loquen- 
diy I agree with Horace and those who 
have paraphrased or commented him, from 
Boileau to Gray. I think that a good rule 
for style is Galiani's definition of sublime 
oratory, — "l'art de tout dire sans etre _ 
mis a la Bastille dans un pays ou il est 
defendu de rien dire." I profess myself 
a fanatical purist, but with a hearty con- 
tempt for the speech -gilders who affect 
purism without any thorough, or even 
pedagogic, knowledge of the engendure, 
growth, and affinities of the noble lan- 
guage about whose mesalliances they pro- 
fess (like Dean Alford) to be so solicitous. 
If they had their way — ! " Doch es sey," 
says Lessing, " dass jene gothische Hof- 
lichkeit eine unentbehrliche Tugend des 
heutigen Umganges ist. Soil sie darum 
unsere Schriften eben so schaal und falsch 
machen als unsern Umgang { " And Dray- 
ton was not far wrong in affirming that 

" 'T is possible to climb, 
To kindle, or to slake, 
Although in Skelton's rhyme." 

Cumberland in his Memoirs tells us that_ 
when, in the midst of Admiral Rodney's 
great sea-fight, Sir Charles Douglas said 



226 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



to him, " Behold, Sir George, the Greeks 
and Trojans contending for the body of 
Patroclus ! " the Admiral answered, pee- 
vishly, "Damn the Greeks and damn the 
Trojans ! I have other things to think of." 
After the battle was won, Rodney thus 
to Sir Charles, " Now, my dear friend, I 
am at the service of your Greeks and 
Trojans, and the whole of Homer's Iliad, 
or as much of it as you please ! " I had 
some such feeling of the impertinence of 
our pseudo-classicality when I chose our 
homely dialect to work in. Should we be 
nothing, because somebody had contrived 
to be something (and that perhaps in a 
provincial dialect) ages ago ? and to be 
nothing by our very attempt to be that 
something, which they had already been, 
and which therefore nobody could be again 
without being a bore ? Is there no way 
left, then, I thought, of being natural, of 
being naif, which means nothing more 
than native, of belonging to the age and 
country in which you are born ? The 
Yankee, at least, is a new phenomenon ; 
let us try to be that. It is perhaps a pis 
aller, but is not No Thoroughfare written 
up everywhere else ? In the literary 
world, things seemed to me very much as 
they were in the latter half of the last 
century. Pope, skimming the cream of 
good sense and expression wherever he 
could find it, had made, not exactly 
poetry, but an honest, salable butter of 
worldly wisdom which pleasantly lubri- 
cated some of the drier morsels of life's 
daily bread, and, seeing this, scores of 
harmlessly insane people went on for the 
next fifty years coaxing his buttermilk 
with the regular up and down of the pen- 
tameter churn. And in our day do we 
not scent everywhere, and even carry 
away in our clothes against our will, that 
faint perfume of musk which Mr. Tenny- 
son has left behind him, or worse, of 
Heine's pachouli ? And might it not be 
possible to escape them by turning into 
one of our narrow New England lanes, 
shut in though it were by bleak stone- 
walls on either hand, and where no better 
flow r ers were to be gathered than golden- 
rod and hardhack ? 

Beside the advantage of getting out of 
the beaten track, our dialect offered others 
hardly inferior. As I was about to make 
an endeavor to state them, I remembered 
something which the clear-sighted Goethe 
had said about Hebel's AUemannische 
Gedichte, which, making proper deduction 
for special reference to the book under 
review, expresses what I would have said 
far better than I could hope to do : "Allen 
diesen innern guten Eigenschaften kommt 



die behagliche naive Sprache sehr zu stat- 
ten. Man findet mehrere sinnlich bedeu- 
tende und wohlklingende Worte .... von 
einem, zwei Buchstaben, Abbreviationen, 
Contractionen, viele kurze, leichte Sylben, 
neue Reime, welches, mehr als man glaubt, 
ein Vortheil fur den Dichter ist. Diese 
Elemente werden durch gluckliehe Con- 
structionen und lebhafte Formen zu einem 
Styl zusammengedrangt der zu diesem 
Zwecke vor unserer Bucherspraehe grosse 
Vorziigehat." Of course I do not mean 
to imply that 7" have come near achieving 
any such success as the great critic here in- 
dicates, but I think the success is there, and 
to be plucked by some more fortunate hand. 
Nevertheless, I was encouraged by the 
approval of many whose opinions I valued. 
With a feeling too tender and grateful to 
be mixed with any vanity, I mention as 
one of these the late A. H. Clough, who 
more than any one of those I have known 
(no longer living), except Hawthorne, im- 
pressed me with the constant presence 
of that indefinable thing we call genius. 
He often suggested that I should try my 
hand at some Yankee Pastorals, which 
would admit of more sentiment and a 
higher tone without foregoing the advan- 
tage offered by the dialect. I have never 
completed anything of the kind, but, in 
this Second Series, both my remembrance 
of his counsel and the deeper feeling 
called up by the great interests at stake, 
led me to venture some passages nearer 
to what is called poetical than could have 
been admitted without incongruity into 
the former series. The time seemed call- 
ing to me, with the old poet, — 

" Leave, then, your wonted prattle 
The oaten reed forbear ; 
For I hear a sound of battle, 
And trumpets rend the air ! " 

The only attempt I had ever made at 
anything like a pastoral (if that may be 
called an attempt which was the result 
almost of pure accident) was in "The 
Courtin'." While the introduction to the 
First Series was going through the press, 
I received word from the printer that 
there was a blank page left which must be 
filled. I sat down at once and improvised 
another fictitious "notice of the press," 
in which, because verse would fill up 
space more cheaply than prose, I inserted 
an extract from a supposed ballad of Mr. 
Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the 
printer, as directed, cut it off when the 
gap was filled. Presently I began to re- 
ceive letters asking for the rest of it, 
sometimes for the balance of it. I had 



INTRODUCTION. 



227 



none, but to answer such demands, I 
patched a conclusion upon it in a later 
edition. Those who had only the first 
continued to importune me. Afterward, 
being asked to write it out as an auto- 
graph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commis- 
sion Fair, I added other verses, into some 
of which I infused a little more sentiment 
in a homely way, and after a fashion com- 
pleted it by sketching in the characters 
and making a connected story. Most 
likely I have spoiled it, but I shall put it 
at the end of this Introduction, to answer 
once for all those kindly importunings. 

As I have seen extracts from what pur- 
ported to be writings of Mr. Biglow, 
which were not genuine, I may properly 
take this opportunity to say, that the two 
volumes now published contain every line 
I ever printed under that pseudonyme, 
and that I have never, so far as I can re- 
member, written an anonymous article 
(elsewhere than in the North American 
Review and the Atlantic Monthly, during 
my editorship of it) except a review of 
Mrs. Stowe's "Minister's Wooing," and, 
some twenty years ago, a sketch of the 
antislavery movement in America for an 
English journal. 

A word more on pronunciation. I have 
endeavored to express this so far as I 
could by the types, taking such pains as, 
I fear, may sometimes make the reading 
harder than need be. At the same time, 
by studying uniformity T have sometimes 
been obliged to sacrifice minute exact- 
ness. The emphasis often modifies the 
habitual sound. For example, for is com- 
monly fer (a shorter sound than fur for 
far), but when emphatic it always be- 
comes for, as "wut for /" So too is pro- 
nounced like to (as it was anciently spelt), 
and to like ta (the sound as in the tou of 
touch), but too, when emphatic, changes 
into tue, and to, sometimes, in similar 
cases, into toe, as, " I did n' hardly know 
wut toe du ! " Where vowels come to- 
gether, or one precedes another following 
an aspirate, the two melt together, as was 
common with the older poets who formed 
their versification on French or Italian 
models. Drayton is thoroughly Yankee 
when he says "I 'xpect," and Pope when 
he says " t' inspire. " With becomes some- 
times 'ith, 'uth, or 'th, or even disappears 
wholly where it comes before the, as, "I 
went along th' Square" (along with the 
Squire), the o.re sound being an archaism 
which I have noticed also in choir, like 
the old Scottish quhair. (Herrick has, 
"Of flowers ne'er sucked by th' theeving 
bee.") Without becomes athout and 'thout. 
Afterwards always retains its locative s, 



and is pronounced always ahterwurds' f 
with a strong accent on the last syllable. 
This oddity has some support in the 
erratic towards' instead of to' wards, which 
we find in the poets and sometimes hear. 
The sound given to the first syllable of 
to' wards, I may remark, sustains the Yan- 
kee lengthening of the o in to. At the 
beginning of a sentence, ahterwurds has 
the accent on the first syllable ; at the 
end of one, on the last ; as, " aJi' terwurds' 
he tol' me," "he tol' me ahterwurds'.' 
The Yankee never makes a mistake in 
his aspirates . U changes in many words 
to e, always in such, brush, tush, hush, 
rush, blush, seldom in much, oftener in 
trust and crust, never in mush, gust, bust, 
tumble, or (?) flush, in the latter case 
probably to avoid confusion with ,Jlesh. I 
have heard flush with the e sound, how- 
ever. For the same reason, I suspect, 
never in gush (at least, I never heard it), 
because we have already one gesh for gash. 
A and * short frequently become e short. 
U always becomes o in the prefix un (ex- 
cept unto), and o in return changes to u 
short in uv for of, and in some words be- 
ginning with om. T and d, b and p, v and 
w, remain intact. So much occurs to me 
in addition to what I said on this head in 
the preface to the former volume. 

Of course in what I have said I wish to 
be understood as keeping in mind the dif- 
ference between provincialisms properly 
so called and slang. Slang is always vul- 
gar, because it is not a natural but an 
affected way of talking, and all mere 
tricks of speech or writing are offensive. 
I do not think that Mr. Biglow can be 
fairly charged with vulgarity, and I should 
have entirety failed in my design, if I had 
not made it appear that high and even 
refined sentiment may coexist with the 
shrewder and more comic elements of the 
Yankee character. I believe that what is 
essentially vulgar and mean-spirited in 
politics seldom has its source in the body 
of the people, but much rather among 
those who are made timid by their wealth 
or selfish by their love of power. A 
democracy can afford much better than 
an aristocracy to follow out its convic- 
tions, and is perhaps better qualified to 
build those convictions on plain princi- 
ples of right and wrong, rather than on 
the shifting sands of expediency. I had 
always thought "Sam Slick" a libel on 
the Yankee character, and a complete 
falsification of Yankee modes of speech, 
though, for aught I know, it may be true 
in both respects so far as the British prov- 
inces are concerned. To me the dialect 
was native, was spoken all about me when 



228 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



a "boy, at a time when an Irish day-laborer 
was as rare as an American one now. 
Since then I have made a study of it so 
far as opportunity allowed. But when I 
write in it, it is as in a mother tongue, 
and I am carried back far beyond any 
studies of it to long-ago noonings in my 
father's hay-fields, and to the talk of Sam 
and Job over their jug of blackstrap under 
the shadow of the ash-tree which still 
dapples the grass whence they have been 
gone so long. 

But life is short, and prefaces should be. 
And so, my good friends, to whom this 
introductory epistle is addressed, farewell. 
Though some of you have remonstrated 
with me, I shall never write any more 
"Biglow Papers," however great the 
temptation, — great especially at the pres- 
ent time, — unless it be to complete the 
original plan of this Series by bringing out 
Mr. Sawin as an "original Union man." 
The very favor with which they have been 
received is a hindrance to me, by forcing 
on me a self-consciousness from which I 
was entirely free when I wrote the First 
Series. Moreover, I am no longer the 
same careless youth, with nothing to do 
but live to myself, my books, and my 
friends, that I was then. I always hated 
politics, in the ordinary sense of the word, 
and I am not likely to grow fonder of 
them, now that I have learned how rare it 
is to find a man who can keep principle 
clear from party and personal prejudice, 
or can conceive the possibility of another's 
doing so. I feel as if I could in some sort 
claim to be an emeritus, and I am sure 
that political satire will have full justice 
done it by that genuine and delightful 
humorist, the Rev. Petroleum V. Nasby. 
I regret that I killed off Mr. Wilbur so 
soon, for he would have enabled me to 
bring into this preface a number of learned 
quotations, which must now go a-begging, 
and also enabled me to dispersonalize my- 
self into a vicarious egotism. He would 
have helped me also in clearing myself 
from a charge which I shall briefly touch 
on, because my friend Mr. Hughes has 
found it needful to defend me in his pref- 
ace to one of the English editions of the 
"Biglow Papers." I thank Mr. Hughes! 
heartily for his friendly care of my good j 
name, and were his Preface accessible to j 
my readers here (as I am glad it is not, 
for its partiality makes me blush), I 
should leave the matter where he left it. 
The charge is of profanity, brought in by 
persons who proclaimed African slavery 
of Divine institution, and is based (so far 
as I have heard) on two passages in the 
First Series — 



and, 



" An' you 've gut to git up airly, 
Ef you want to take in God," 



"God '11 send the bill to you," 

and on some Scriptural illustrations by 
Mr. Sawin. 

Now, in the first place, I was writing 
under an assumed character, and must talk 
as the person would whose mouthpiece I 
made myself. Will any one familiar with 
the New England countryman venture to 
tell me that he does not speak of sacred 
things familiarly ? that Biblical allusions 
(allusions, that is, to the single book with 
whose language, from his" church-going 
habits, he is intimate) are not frequent on 
his lips ? If so, he cannot have pursued 
his studies of the character on so many 
long-ago muster-fields and at so many cat- 
tle-shows as I. But I scorn any such line 
of defence, and will confess at once that 
one of the things I am proud of in my 
countrymen is (I am not speaking now of 
such persons as I have assumed Mr. Sawin 
to be) that they do not put their Maker 
away far from them, or interpret the fear of 
God into being afraid of Him. The Tal- 
mudists had conceived a deep truth when 
they said, that "all things were in the 
power of God, save the fear of God " ; and 
when people stand in great dread of an 
invisible power, I suspect they mistake 
quite another personage for the Deity. 
I might justify myself for the passages 
criticised by many parallel ones from 
Scripture, but I need not. The Reverend 
Homer Wilbur's note-books supply me 
with three apposite quotations. The first 
is from a Father of the Roman Church, 
the second from a Father of the Anglican, 
and the third from a Father of Modern 
English poetry. The Puritan divines 
would furnish me with many more such. 
St. Bernard says, Sapiens nummularius est 
Deus : nummum fictum non recipiet ; "A 
cunning money-changer is God : he will 
take in no base coin." Latimer says, 
"You shall perceive that God, by this 
example, shaketh us by the noses and 
taketh us by the ears." Familiar enough, 
both of them, one would say ! But I 
should think Mr. Biglow had verily stolen 
the last of the two maligned passages from 
Dryden's " Don Sebastian," where I find 

"And beg of Heaven to charge the bill on 

me ! " 
And there I leave the matter, being will- 
ing to believe that the Saint, the Martyr, 
and even the Poet, were as careful of 
God's honor as my critics are ever likely 
to be, 

J. R. L. 






INTRODUCTION. 



229 



THE COURTIN'. 

God makes sech nights, all white an' 
still 

Fur 'z you can look or listen, 
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, 

All silence an' all glisten. 

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown 
An'- peeked in thru' the winder, 

An' there sot Huldy all alone, 
'ith no one nigh to hender. 

A fireplace filled the room's one side 
With half a cord o' wood in — 

There warn't no stoves (tell comfort 
died) 
To bake ye to a puddin. 

I'he wa'nut logs shot sparkles out 
Towards the pootiest, bless her, 

Ail leetle flames danced all about 
The chiny on the dresser. 

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, 

An' in amongst 'em rusted 
The ole queen' s-arm thet gran'ther 
Young 

Fetched back from Concord busted. 

The very room, coz she was in, 
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', 

A.n' she looked full ez rosy agin 
Ez the apples she was peelin'. 

'T was kin' o' kingdom- come to look 

On sech a blessed cretur, 
A dogrose blushin' to a brook 

Ain't modester nor sweeter. 

He was six foot o' man, A I, 
Clear grit an' human natur' ; 

None could n't quicker pitch a ton 
Nor dror a furrer straighter. 



He 'd sparked it with full twenty gals, 
Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 
'em, 

Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells — 
All is, he could n't love 'em. 

But long o' her his veins 'ould run 
All crinkly like curled maple, 



The side she breshed felt full o* sun 
Ez a south slope in Ap'il. 

She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing 

Ez hisn in the choir ; 
My ! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, 

She knowed the Lord was nigher. 

An' she 'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, 
When her new meetin'-bunnet 

Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair 
0' blue eyes sot upon it. 

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! 

She seemed to 've gut a new soul, 
For she felt sartin-sure he 'd come, 

Down to her veiy shoe-sole. , 

She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, 

A-raspin' on the scraper, — 
All ways to once her feelins flew 

Like sparks in burnt-up paper. 

He kin' o' 1'itered on the mat, 

Some doubtfle o' the sekle. 
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, 

But hern went pity Zekle. 

An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk 
Ez though she wished him furder, 

An' on her apples kep' to work, 
Parin' away like murder. 

" You want to see my Pa, I s'pose ?" 
" Wal .... no .... I come da 
signin' " — 
"To see my Ma? She 's sprinklin 
clo'es 
Agin to-morrer's i'nin\" 

To say why gals acts so or so, 
Or don't, 'ould be presumin' ; 

Mebby to mean yes an' say no 
Comes nateral to women. 

He stood a spell on one foot fust, 
Then stood a spell on t' other, 

An' on which one he felt the wust 
He could n't ha' told ye nuther. 

Says he, "I 'd better call agin " ; 

Says she, " Think likely, Mister" : 
Thet last word pricked him like a pin, 

An' .... Wal, he up an' kist her. 



230 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, 

Huldy sot pale ez ashes, 
All kin' o' smily roun' the lips 

An' teary roun' the lashes. 

For she was jes' the quiet kind 

Whose naturs never vary, 
Like streams that keep a summer mind 

Snowhid in Jenooary. 



The blood clost roun* her heart felt glued 

Too tight for all expressing 
Tell mother see how metters stood, 

An' gin 'em both her blessin'. 

Then her red come back like the tide 

Down to the Bay o' Fundy, 
An' all I know is they was cried 

In meetin' come nex' Sunday. 



THE BIGLOW PAPEKS. 



No. I. 

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO 
MR. HOSEA BIGLOW. 

LETTER FROM THE REVEREND HOMER WIL- 
BUR, M. A., ENCLOSING THE EPISTLE 
AFORESAID. 

Jaalam, 15th Nov., 1861. 
* * * * * 

It is not from any idle wish to obtrude 
my humble person with undue prominence 
upon the publick view that I resume my 
pen upon the present occasion. Junim^es 
ad labor es. But having been a main in- 
strument in rescuing the talent of my young 
parishioner from being buried in the ground, 
by giving it such warrant with the world 
as could be derived from a name already 
widely known by several printed discourses 
(all of which I may be permitted without 
immodesty to state have been deemed 
worthy of preservation in the Library of 
Harvard College by my esteemed friend 
Mr. Sibley), it seemed becoming that I 
should not only testify to the genuineness 
of the following production, but call atten- 
tion to it, the more as Mr. Biglow had so 
long been silent as to be in danger of abso- 
lute oblivion. I insinuate no claim to any 
share in the authorship (vix ea nostra voco) 
of the works already published by Mr. 
Biglow, but merely take to myself the 
credit of having fulfilled toward them the 
office of taster {experto crede), who, having 
first tried, could afterward bear witness 
(credenzen it was aptly named by the Ger- 
mans), an office always arduous, and some- 
times even dangerous, as in the case of those 
devoted persons who venture their lives in 
the deglutition of patent medicines (dolus 
latet in generalibus, there is deceit in the 
most of them) and thereafter are wonder- 
fully preserved long enough to append their 
signatures to testimonials in the diurnal 
and hebdomadal prints. I say not this as 
covertly glancing at the authors of certain 



manuscripts which have been submitted to 
my literary judgment (though an epick in 
twenty-four books on the "Taking of Jer- 
icho " might, save for the prudent fore- 
thought of Mrs. Wilbur in secreting the 
same just as I had arrived beneath the walls 
and was beginning a catalogue of the various 
horns and their blowers, too ambitiously 
emulous in longanimity of Homer's list of 
ships, might, I say, have rendered frustrate 
any hope I could entertain vacare Musis 
for the small remainder of my days), but 
only the further to secure myself against 
any imputation of unseemly forthputting. 
I will barely subjoin, in this connexion, 
that, whereas Job was left to desire, in the 
soreness of his heart, that his adversary 
had written a book, as perchance misan- 
thropically wishing to indite a review there- 
of, yet was not Satan allowed so far to tempt 
him as to send Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar 
each with an unprinted work in his wallet 
to be submitted to his censure. But of this 
enough. Were I in need of other excuse, 
I might add that I write by the express de- 
sire of Mr. Biglow himself, whose entire 
winter leisure is occupied, as he assures me, 
in answering demands for autographs, a 
labor exacting enough in itself, and egre- 
giously so to him, who, being no ready pen- 
man, cannot sign so much as his name with- 
out strange contortions of the face (his nose, 
even, being essential to complete success) 
and painfully suppressed Saint- Vitus-dance 
of every muscle in his body. This, with 
his having been put in the Commission of 
the Peace by our excellent Governor (0, si 
sic omnes !) immediately on his accession 
to office, keeps him continually employed. 
Baud, inexpertus loquor, having for many 
years written myself J. P., and being not 
seldom applied to for specimens of my chi- 
rography, a request to which I have some- 
times over weakly assented, believing as I 
do that nothing written of set purpose can 
properly be called an autograph, but only 
those unpremeditated sallies and lively run- 
nings which betray the fireside Man instead 



232 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



of the hunted Notoriety doubling on his 
pursuers. But it is time that I should be- 
think me of St. Austin's prayer, libera me a 
meipso, if I would arrive at the matter in 
hand. 

Moreover, I had yet another reason for 
taking up the pen myself. I am informed 
that the Atlantic Monthly is mainly in- 
debted for its success to the contributions 
and editorial supervision of Dr. Holmes, 
whose excellent "Annals of America" oc- 
cupy an honored place upon my shelves. 
The journal itself I have never seen ; but if 
this be so, it might seem that the recommen- 
dation of a brother- clergyman (though par 
mag is quam similis) should carry a greater 
weight. I suppose that you have a de- 
partment for historical lucubrations, and 
should be glad, if deemed desirable, to for- 
ward for publication my "Collections for 
the Antiquities of Jaalam," and my (now 
happily complete) pedigree of the Wilbur 
family from its fons et origo, the Wild Boar 
of Ardennes. Withdrawn from the active 
duties of my profession by the settlement 
of a colleague-pastor, the Reverend Jedu- 
thun Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus Four- 
Corners, I might find time for further con- 
tributions to general literature on similar 
topicks. I have made large advances to- 
wards a completer genealogy of Mrs. Wil- 
bur's family, the Pilcoxes, not, if I know my- 
self, from any idle vanity, but with the sole 
desire of rendering myself useful in my day 
and generation. Nulla dies sine lined. I 
inclose a meteorological register, a list of 
the births, deaths, and marriages, and a 
few memorabilia of longevity in Jaalam 
East Parish for the last half-century. 
Though spared to the unusual period of 
more than eighty years, I find no diminu- 
tion of my faculties or abatement of my 
natural vigor, except a scarcely sensible 
decay of memory and a necessity of recur- 
ring to younger eyesight or spectacles for 
the finer print in Cruden. It would gratify 
me to make some further provision for de- 
clining years from the emoluments of my 
literary labors. I had intended to effect 
an insurance on my life, but was deterred 
therefrom by a circular from one of the of- 
fices, in which the sudden death of so large 
a proportion of the insured was set forth 
as an inducement, that it seemed to me 
little less than a tempting of Providence. 
JVeque in summd inopid levis esse senectus 
potest, ne sapienti quidem. 

Thus far concerning Mr. Biglow ; and so 
much seemed needful (brevis esse labor o) 
by way of preliminary, after a silence of 
fourteen years. He greatly fears lest he 
may in this essay have fallen below him- 
self, well knowing that, if exercise be dan- 



gerous on a full stomach, no less so is 
writing on a full reputation. Beset as he 
has been on all sides, he could not refrain, 
and would only imprecate patience till he 
shall again have "got the hang" (as he 
calls it) of an accomplishment long disused. 
The letter of Mr. Sawin was received some 
time in last June, and others have followed 
which will in due season be submitted to 
the publick. How largely his statements 
are to be depended on, I more than merely 
dubitate. He was always distinguished for 
a tendency to exaggeration, — it might al- 
most be qualified by a stronger term. For- 
titer mentire, aliquid hasret, seemed to be 
his favourite rule of rhetorick. That he 
is actually where he says he is the post- 
mark would seem to confirm ; that he was 
received with the publick demonstrations 
he describes would appear consonant with 
what we know of the habits of those re- 
gions ; but further than this I venture not 
to decide. I have sometimes suspected a 
vein of humor in him which leads him to 
speak by contraries ; but since, in the un- 
restrained intercourse of private life, I have 
never observed in him any striking powers 
of invention, I am the more willing to put 
a certain qualified faith in the incidents and 
the details of life and manners which give 
to his narratives some portion of the inter- 
est and entertainment which characterizes 
a Century Sermon. 

It may be expected of me that I should 
say something to justify myself witli the 
world for a seeming inconsistency with my 
well-known principles in allowing my 
youngest son to raise a company for the 
war, a fact known to all through the me- 
dium of the publick prints. I did reason 
with the young man, but expellas naturam 
furcd, tamen usque recurrit. Having my- 
self been a chaplain in 1812, I could the 
less wonder that a man of war had sprung 
from my loins. It was, indeed, grievous 
to send my Benjamin, the child of my old 
age ; but after the discomfiture of Manas- 
sas, I with my own hands did buckle on 
his armour, trusting in the great Com- 
forter and Commander for strength accord- 
ing to my need. For truly the memory 
of" a brave son dead in his shroud were 
a greater staff of my declining years than 
a living coward (if those may be said to 
have lived who carry all of themselves 
into the grave with them), though his 
days might be long in the land, and he 
should get much goods. It is not till our 
earthen vessels are broken that we find 
and truly possess the treasure that was 
laid up in them. Migravi in animam 
meam, I have sought refuge in my own 
soul ; nor would I be shamed by the 



THE BIGLOW PAPEKS. 



233 



heathen comedian with his Nequam illud 
verbum, bene vult, nisi bene facit. During 
our dark days, I read constantly in the in- 
spired book of Job, which I believe to con- 
tain more food to maintain the fibre of the 
soul for right living and high thinking 
than all pagan literature together, though 
I would by no means vilipend the study of 
the classicks. There I read that Job said 
in his despair, even as the fool saith in his 
heart there is no God, — The tabernacles 
of robbers prosper, and they that provoke 
God are .secure." {Job xii. 6.) But I 
sought farther till I found this Scripture 
also, which I would have those perpend 
who have striven to turn our Israel aside 
to the worship of strange gods: — " If I 
did despise the cause of my man-servant 
or of my maid-servant when they contended 
with me, what then shall I do when God 
riseth up ? and when he visiteth, what 
shall I answer him?" {Job xxxi. 13, 14.) 
On this text I preached a discourse on the 
last day of Fasting and Humiliation with 
general acceptance, though there were not 
wanting one or two Laodiceans who said 
that I should have waited till the President 
announced his policy. But let us hope 
and pray, remembering this of Saint Greg- 
ory, Vult Dens rogari, vult cogi, vult qud- 
dam importunitate vinci. 

We had our first fall of snow on Friday 
last. Frosts have been unusually back- 
ward this fall. A singular circumstance 
occurred in this town on the 20th October, 
in the family of Deacon Pelatiah Tinkham. 
On the previous evening, a few moments 
before family prayers, 



[The editors of the A tlantic find it ne- 
cessary here to cut short the letter of their 
valued correspondent, which seemed cal- 
culated rather on the rates of longevity in 
Jaalam than for less favored localities. 
They have every encouragement to hope 
that he will write again.] 
With esteem and respect, 
Your obedient servant, 

Homer Wilbur, A. M. 

It 's some consid'ble of a spell sence I 

hain't writ no letters, 
An' ther' 's gret changes hez took place 

in all polit'cle metters ; 
Some canderdates air dead an' gone, an' 

some hez ben defeated, 
Which 'mounts to pooty much the same ; 

fer it 's ben proved repeated 
A betch o' bread thet hain't riz once 

ain't goin' to rise agin, 



An' it 's jest money throwed away to 

put the emptins in : 
But thet 's wut folks wun't never larn ; 

they dunno how to go, 
Arter you want their room, no more 'n 

a bullet-headed beau ; 
Ther' 's oilers chaps a-hangin' roun' thet 

can't see peatime 's past, 
Mis'ble as roosters in a rain, heads 

down an' tails half-mast : 
It ain't- disgraceful bein' beat, when a 

holl nation doos it, 
But Chance is like an amberill, — it 

don't take twice to lose it. 



I spose you 're kin' o' cur'ous, now, to 

know why I hain't writ. 
Wal, I 've ben where a litt'ry taste 

don't somehow seem to git 
Th' encouragement a feller 'd think, 

thet 's used to public schools, 
An' where sech things ez paper 'n' ink 

air clean agin the rules : 
A kind o' vicyvarsy house, built dreffle 

strong an' stout, 
So 's 't honest people can't get in, ner 

t' other sort git out, 
An' with the winders so contrived, 

you 'd prob'ly like the view 
Better alookin' in than out, though it 

seems sing'lar, tu ; 
But then the landlord sets by ye, can't 

bear ye out o' sight, 
And. locks ye up ez reg'lar ez an outside 

door at night. 

This world is awfle contrary : the rope 

may stretch your neck 
Thet mebby kep' another chap frum 

washin' off a wreck ; 
An' you may see the taters grow in one 

poor feller's patch, 
So small no self-respectin' hen thet val- 

lied time 'ould scratch, 
So small the rot can't find 'em out, an' 

then agin, nex' door, 
Ez feig ez wut hogs dream on when 

they 're 'most too fat to snore. 
But groutin' ain't no kin' o' use ; an' ef 

the fust throw fails, 
Why, up an' try agin, thet 's all, — the 

coppers ain't all tails ; 
Though I hev seen 'em when I thought 

they hed n't no more head 
Than 'd sarve a nussin' Brigadier thet 

gits some ink to shed. 



234 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



When I writ last, I 'd ben turned loose 

by thet blamed nigger, Pomp, 
Ferlorner than a musquash, ef you 'd 

took an' dreened his swamp : 
But 1 ain't o' the meecnin' kind, thet 

sets an' thinks fer weeks 
The bottom 's out o' th' univarse coz 

their own gillpot leaks. 
I hed to cross bayous an' eriks, (wal, it 

did beat all natur',) 
Upon a kin' o' corderoy, fust log, then 

alligator ; 
Luck'ly, the critters warn't sharp-sot ; 

I guess 't wuz overruled 
They'd done their mornin's marketin' 

an' gut their hunger cooled ; 
Fer missionaries to the Creeks an' run- 
aways are viewed 
By them an' folks ez sent express to be 

their reg'lar food ; 
Wutever 't wuz, they laid an' snoozed 

ez peacefully ez sinners, 
Meek ez disgestin' deacons be at oi'dina- 

tion dinners ; 
Ef any on 'em turned an' snapped, I 

let 'em kin' o' taste 
My live-oak leg, an' so, ye see, ther' 

warn't no gret o' waste ; 
Fer they found out in quicker time than 

ef they 'd ben to college 
'T warn' t heartier food than though 't wuz 

made out o' the tree o' knowledge. 
But / tell you my other leg hed larned 

wut pizon-nettle meant, 
An' var'ous other usefle things, afore 1 

reached a settlement, 
An' all o' me thet wuz n't sore an' 

sendin' prickles thru me 
Wuz jest the leg I parted with inlickin' 

Montezumy : 
A useful limb it 's ben to me, an' more 

of a support 
Than wut the other hez ben, — coz I 

dror my pension for 't. 

Wal, I gut in at last where folks wuz 

civerlized an' white, 
Ez I diskivered to my cost afore 't warn't 

hardly night ; 
Fer 'z I wuz settin' in the bar a-takin' 

sunthin' hot, 
An' feelin' like a man agin, all over in 

one spot, 
A feller thet sot oppersite, arter a squint 

at me, 
Lep up an' drawed his peacemaker, an', 

"Dash it, Sir," suz he, 



" I 'm doubledashed ef you ain't him 

thet stole my yaller chettle, 
(You 're all the stranger thet 's around,) 

so now you 've gut to settle ; 
It ain't no use to argerfy ner try to cut 

up frisk} 7 , 
I know ye ez I know the smell of ole 

chain-lightnin' whiskey ; 
We 're lor-abidin' folks down here, we '11 

fix ye so 's 't a bar 
Would n' tech ye with a ten-foot pole ; 

(Jedge, you jest warm the tar ;) 
You '11 think you 'd better ha' gut among 

a tribe o' Mongrel Tartars, 
'fore we 've done showin' how w r e raise 

our Southun prize tar-martyrs ; 
A moultin' fallen cherubim, ef he should 

see ye, 'd snicker, 
Thinkin' he warn't a suckemstance. 

Come, genlemun, le' 's liquor ; 
An', Gin'ral, when you 've mixed the 

drinks an' chalked 'em up, tote 

roun' 
An' see ef ther' 's a feather-bed (thet 's 

borryable) in town 
We '11 try ye fair, ole Grafted-Leg, an' 

ef the tar wun't stick, 
Th' ain't not a juror here but wut '11 

'quit ye double-quick." 
To cut it short, I wun't say sweet, they 

gi' me a good dip, 
(They ain't perfessi?i Bahptists here,) 

then give the bed a rip, — 
The jury 'd sot, an' quicker 'n a flash 

they hetched me out, a livin' 
Extemp'ry mammoth turkey-chick fer a 

Fejee Thank sgivin'. 
Thet I felt some stuck up is wut it 's 

nat'ral to suppose, 
When poppylar enthusiasm hed fun- 

nished me sech clo'es ; 
(Ner 't ain't without edvantiges, this 

kin' o' suit, ye see, 
It 's water-proof, an' water 's wut I like 

kep' out o' me ; ) 
But nut content with thet, they took a 

kerridge from the fence 
An' rid me roun' to see the place, en- 
tirely free 'f expense, 
With forty-'leven new kines o' sarse 

without no charge acquainted me, 
Gi' me three cheers, an' vowed thet 1 

wuz all their fahncy painted me ; 
They treated me to ail their eggs ; (they 

keep 'em I should think, 
Fer sech ovations, pooty long, for they 

wuz mos' distinc' ;) 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



rsd 



They starred me thick 'z the Milky- Way 

with indiscrim'nit cherity, 
Fer wut we call reception eggs air sun- 
thin' of a rerity ; 
Green ones is plentifle anough, skurce 

wuth a nigger's getherin', 
But your dead-ripe ones ranges high fer 

treatin' jSTothun bretherin ; 
A spotteder, ringstreakeder child the' 

warn't in Uncle Sam's 
Holl farm, — a cross of striped pig an' 

one o' Jacob's lambs ; 
'T wuz Dannil in the lions' den, new an' 

enlarged edition, 
An' everythin' fust-rate o' 'ts kind ; the' 

warn't no impersition. 
People 's impulsiver down here than wut 

our folks to home be, 
An' kin' o' go it 'ith a resh in raisin' 

Hail Columby : 
Thet 's so : an' they swarmed out like 

bees, for your real Southun men's 
Time is n't o' much more account than 

an ole settin' hen's ; 
(They jest work semioccashnally, or else 

don't work at all, 
An' so their time an' 'tention both air at 

saci'ty's call.) 
Talk about hospatality ! wut Nothun 

town d' ye know 
Would take a totle stranger up an' treat 

him gratis so ? 
You 'd better b'lieve ther' \s nothin' like 

this spendin' days an' nights 
Along 'ith a dependent race fer civerliz- 

in' whites. 

But this wuz all prelim'nary; it 's so 

Gran' Jurors here 
Fin' a true bill, a hendier way than 

ourn, an' nut so dear ; 
So arter this they sentenced me, to make 

all tight 'n' snug, 
Afore a reg'lar court o' law, to ten years 

in the Jug. 
I did n't make no gret defence : you 

don't feel much like speakin', 
When, ef you let your clamshells gape, 

a quart o' tar will leak in : 
I hev hearn tell o' winged words, but 

pint o' fact it tethers 
The spoutin' gift to hev your words tu 

thick sot on with feathers, 
An' Choate ner Webster would n't ha' 

made an A 1 kin' o' speech 
Astride a Southun chestnut horse sharp- 
er 'n a baby's screech. 



Two year ago they ketched the thief, 'n' 

seein' I wuz innercent, 
They jest uncorked an' le' me run, an' 

in my stid the sinner sent 
To see how he liked pork 'n' pone flav- 
ored with wa'nut saplin', 
An' nary social priv'ledge but a one-hoss, 

starn- wheel chaplin. 
When I come out, the folks behaved 

mos' gen 'manly an' harnsome ; 
They 'lowed it would n't be more 'n 

right, ef I should cuss 'n ? darn 

some : 
The Cunnle he apolergized; suz he, 

" I '11 du wut \s right, 
I '11 give ye settisfection now by shootin' 

ye at sight, 
An' give the nigger (when he 's caught), 

to pay him fer his trickin r 
In gittin' the wrong man took up, a 

most H fired lickin', — 
It 's jest the way with all on 'em, the 

inconsistent critters, 
They 're 'most enough to make a man 

blaspheme his mornin' bitters ; 
I '11 be your frien' thru thick an' thin 

an' in all kines o' weathers, 
An' all you '11 hev to pay fer 's jest the 

waste o' tar an' feathers : 
A lady owned the bed, ye see, a widder, 

tu, Miss Shennon ; 
It wuz her mite ; we would ha' took 

another, ef ther 'd ben one : 
We don't make no charge for the ride 

an' all the other hxins. 
Le' 's liquor ; Gin'ral, you can chalk our 

friend for all the mixins." 
A meetin' then wuz called, where they 

1 ' Resolved, Thet we respec' 
B. S. Esquire for quallerties o' heart an' 

intellec' 
Peculiar to Columby's sile, an' not to no 

one else's, 
Thet makes European tyrans scringe in 

all their gilded pel'ces, 
An' doos gret honor to our race an' 

Southun institootions " : 
(I give ye jest the substance o' the lead- 
in' resolootions :) 
"Resolved, Thet we revere in him a 

soger 'thout a nor, 
A martyr to the princerples o' libbaty 

an' lor : 
Resolved, Thet other nations all, ef sot 

'longside o' us, 
For vartoo, larnin', chivverlry, ain't no- 
ways wuth a cuss." 



236 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



They gut up a subscription, tu, but no 

gret come o* thet ; 
I 'xpect in cairin' of it roun' they took a 

leaky hat ; 
Though Southun genelmun ain't slow at 

puttin' down their name, 
("When they can write,) fer in the eend 

it comes to jes' the same, 
Because, ye see, 't 's the fashion here to 

sign an' not to think 
A critter 'd be so sordid ez to ax 'em for 

the chink : 
1 did n't call but jest on one, an' lie 

drawed toothpick on me, 
An' reckoned he warn't goin' to stan' no 

sech doggauned econ'my ; 
So nothin' more wuz realized, 'ceptin' 

the good-will shown, 
Than ef 't had ben from fust to last a 

reg'lar Cotton Loan. 
It 's a good way, though, come to think, 

coz ye enjy the sense 
0' lendin' lib' rally to the Lord, an' nary 

red o' 'xpense : 
Sence then I 've gut my name up for a 

gin'rous-hearted man 
By jes' subscribin' right an' left on this 

high-minded plan ; 
I 've gin away my thousans so to every 

Southun sort 
0' missions, colleges, an' sech, ner ain't 

no poorer for 't. 

I warn't so bad off, arter all ; I need n't 

hardly mention 
That Guv'ment owed me quite a pile for 

my arrears o' pension, — 
I mean the poor, weak thing w r e Tied: we 

run a new one now, 
Thet strings a feller with a claim up ta 

the nighes' bough, 
An' predises the rights o' man, purtects 

down-trodden debtors, 
Ner wun't hev creditors about a- 

scrougin' o' their betters : 
Jeff's gut the last idees ther' is, pos- 

crip', fourteenth edition, 
He knows it takes some enterprise to 

run an oppersition ; 
Ourn 's the fust thru-by-daylight train, 

with all ou' doors for deepot ; 
Yourn goes so slow you 'd think 't wuz 

drawed by a las' cent'ry teapot ; — 
Wal, I gut all on 't paid in gold afore 

our State seceded, 
An' done wal, for Confed'rit bonds 

warn't jest the cheese I needed : 



Nut but wut they 're ez good ez gold, but 

then it 's hard a-breakin' on 'em, 
An' ignorant folks is oilers sot an' wun't 

git used to takin' on 'em ; 
They 're wuth ez much ez wut they wnz 

afore ole Mem'nger signed 'em, 
An' go off middlin' wal for drinks, 

when ther's 's a knife behind 'em ; 
We du miss silver, jes' fer thet an' ridin' 

in a bus, 
Now we 've shook off the desputs thet 

w t uz suckin' at our pus ; 
An' it 's because the South 's so rich ; 't 

wuz nat'ral to expec' 
Supplies o' change wuz jes' the things we 

should n't recollec' ; 
We 'd ough' to ha' thought aforehan', 

though, o' thet good rule o' Crock- 
ett's, 
For 't 's tiresome cairin' cotton-bales an' 

niggers in your pockets, 
Ner 't ain't quite hendy to pass off one 

o' your six-foot Guineas 
An' git your halves an' quarters back in 

gals an' pickaninnies : 
Wal, 't ain't quite all a feller 'd ax, but 

then ther' 's this to say, 
It 's on'y jest among ourselves thet we 

expec' to pay ; 
Our system would ha' caird us thru in 

any Bible cent'ry, 
'fore this onscripterl plan come up o' 

books by double entry ; 
We go the patriarkle here out o' all 

sight an' hearin', 
For Jacob warn't a suckemstance to 

Jeff at financierin' ; 
He never 'd thought o' borryin' from 

Esau like all nater 
An' then cornfiscatin' all debts to seek 

a small pertater ; 
There 's p'litickle econ'my, now, com- 
bined 'ith niorril beauty 
Thet saycrifices privit eends (your in'- 

my's, tu) to dooty ! 
Wy, Jeff 'd ha' gin him five an' won his 

eye-teeth 'fore he knowed it, 
An', stid o' wastin' pottage, he 'd ha' eat 

it up an' owed it. 
But I wuz goin' on to say how I come 

here to dwall ; — 
'Nough said, thet, arter lookin' roun', 

I liked the place so wal, 
Where niggers doos a double good, w r ith 

us atop to stiddy 'em, 
By bein' proofs o' prophecy an' suckle- 

atin' medium, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



237 



Where a man 's sun thin' coz he 's white, 

an' whiskey 's cheap ez fleas, 
An' the financial pollercy jes' sooted my 

idees, 
Thet 1 friz down right where I wuz, 

merried the Widder Shennon, 
(Her thirds wuz part in cotton-land, 

part in the curse o' Canaan,) 
An' here 1 be ez lively ez a chipmunk 

on a wall, 
With nothin' to feel riled about much 

later 'n Eddam's fall. 

Ez fur ez human foresight goes, we 

made an even trade : 
She gut an overseer, an' I a fem'ly 

ready-made, 
The youngest on 'em 's 'mos' growed up, 

rugged an' spry ez w r eazles, 
So 's 't ther' 's no resk o' doctors' bills 

fer hoopin' -cough an' measles. 
Our farm 's at Turkey- Buzzard Roost, 

Little Big Boosy River, 
Wal located in all respex, — fer 't ain't 

the chills 'n' fever 
Thet makes my writin' seem to squirm ; 

a Southuner 'd allow I 'd 
Some call to shake, for I 've jest hed to 

meller a new cowhide. 
Miss S. is all 'f a lady ; th' ain't no bet- 
ter on Big Boosy 
Ner one with more accomplishmunts 

'twixt here an' Tuscaloosy ; 
She's an F. P., the tallest kind, an' 

prouder 'n the Gran' Turk, 
An' never hed a relative thet done a 

stroke o' work ; 
Hern ain't a scrim pin' fem'ly sech ez 

you git up Down East, 
Th' ain't a growed member on 't but 

owes his thousuns et the least : 
She is some old ; but then agin ther' 's 

drawbacks in my sheer : 
Wut 's left o' me ain't more 'n enough 

to make a Brigadier : 
Wust is, thet she hez tantrums ; she 's 

like Seth Moody's gun 
(Him thet wuz nicknamed frum his limp 

Ole Dot an' Kerry One) ; 
He 'd left her loaded up a spell, an' hed 

to git her clear, 
So he onhitched, — Jeerusalem ! the 

middle o' last year 
Wuz right nex' door compared to where 

she kicked the critter tu 
(Though jest where he brought up wuz 

wut no human never knew) ; 



His brother Asaph picked her up an* 

tied her to a tree, 
An' then she kicked an hour 'n' a half 

afore she 'd let it be : 
Wal, Miss S. doos hev cuttins-up an' 

pourins-out o' vials, 
But then she hez her widder's thirds, an' 

all on us hez trials. 
My objec', though, in writin' now 

warn't to allude to sech, 
But to another suckemstance more 

dellykit to tech, — 
I want thet you should grad'lly break 

my merriage to Jerushy, 
An' there 's a heap of argymunts thet 's 

emple to indooce ye : 
Fust place, State's Prison, — wal, it 's 

true it warn't fer crime, o' course, 
But then it 's jest the same fer her in 

gittin' a disvorce ; 
Nex' place, my State 's secedin' out hez 

leg'lly lef me free 
To merry any one I please, pervidin' 

it 's a she ; 
Fin'lly, I never wun't come back, she 

need n't hev no fear on 't, 
But then it 's wal to fix things right fer 

fear Miss S. should hear on 't ; 
Lastly, I 've gut religion South, an' 

Rushy she 's a pagan 
Thet sets by th' graven imiges o' the 

gret Nothun Dagon ; 
(Now 1 hain't seen one in six munts, 

for, sence our Treashry Loan, 
Though yaller boys is thick anough, 

eagles hez kind o' flown ;) 
An' ef J wants a stronger pint than 

them thet I hev stated, 
Wy, she 's an aliun in'my now, an' 

I 've been cornfiscated, — 
For sence w r e 've entered on th' estate o' 

the late nayshnul eagle, 
She hain't no kin' o' right but jes' wut 

I allow ez legle : 
Wut doos Secedin' mean, ef 't ain't thet 

nat'rul rights hez riz, 'n' 
Thet wait is mine 's my own, but wut 's 

another man's ain't his'n ? 

Besides, I could n't do no else ; Miss S. 

suz she to me, 
"You've sheered my bed," [thet's 

when I paid my interduction fee 
To Southun rites,] "an' kep' your 

sheer," [wal, I allow it stacked 
So's 't I wuz most six weeks in jail 

afore I gut me picked,] 



238 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



" Ner never paid no demmiges ; but 

thet wun't do no harm, 
Pervidin' thet you '11 ondertake to over- 
see the farm ; 
(My eldes' boy 's so took up, wut with 

the Ringtail Rangers 
An' settin' in the Jestice- Court for wel- 

comin' o' strangers " ;) 
[He sot on me ;] "an' so, ef you'll jest 

ondertake the care 
Upon a mod'rit sellery, we'll up an' 

call it square ; 
But ef you can't conclude," suz she, an' 

give a kin' o' grin, 
"Wy, the Gran' Jurymen, I 'xpect, '11 

hev to set agin." 
That's the way metters stood at fust; 

now wut wuz I to du, 
But jes' to make the best on 't an' off 

coat an' buckle tu ? 
Ther' ain't a livin' man thet finds an 

income necessarier 
Than me, — bimeby I '11 tell ye how I 

fin'lly come to merry her. 

She hed another motive, tu : I mention 

of it here 
T' encourage lads thet 's growin' up to 

study 'n' persevere, 
An' show 'em how much better 't pays 

to mind their winter-schoolin' 
Than to go off on benders 'n' sech, an' 

waste their time in foolin' ; 
Ef 't warn't for studyin' evenins, why, I 

never 'd ha' ben here 
An orn' merit o' saciety, in my approprut 

spear : 
She wanted somebody, ye see, o' taste 

an' cultivation, 
To talk along o' preachers when they 

stopt to the plantation; 
For folks in Dixie th't read an' rite, 

onless it is by jarks, 
Is skurce ez wut they w r uz among th' 

oridgenle patriarchs ; 
To fit a feller f wut they call the soshle 

higherarchy, 
All thet you 've gut to know is jes' be- 

yund an evrage darky ; 
Schoolin' 's wut they can't seem to stan', 

they 're tu consarned high-pressure, 
An' knowin' t' much might spile a boy 

for bein' a Secesher. 
We hain't no settled preachin' here, ner 

ministeril taxes ; 
The min'ster's only settlement 's the 

carpet-bag he packs his 



Razor an' soap-brush intu, with his 

hymbook an' his Bible, — 
But they du preach, I swan to man, it 's 

puf kly indescrib'le ! 
They go it like an Ericsson's ten-hoss- 

power coleric ingine, 
An' make Ole Split-Foot winch an' 

squirm, for all he 's used to singein'; 
Hawkins's whetstone ain't a pinch o' 

primin' to the innards 
To hearin' on 'em put free grace t' a lot 

o' tough old sinhards ! 
But I must eend this letter now : 'fore 

long I '11 send a fresh un ; 
I 've lots o' things to write about, per- 

ticklerly Seceshun : 
I 'm called off now to mission-work, to 

let a leetle law in 
To Cynthy's hide : an' so, till death, 
Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. 



No. II. 



MASON AND SLIDELL : A YANKEE 
IDYLL. 

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam, 6th Jan., 1862. 

Gentlemen, — I was highly gratified by 
the insertion of a portion of my letter in 
the last number of your valuable and en- 
tertaining Miscellany, though in a type 
which rendered its substance inaccessible 
even to the beautiful new spectacles pre- 
sented to me by a Committee of the Parish 
on New Year's Day. I trust that I was 
able to bear your very considerable abridg- 
ment of my lucubrations with a spirit be- 
coming a Christian. My third granddaugh- 
ter, Rebekah, aged fourteen years, and whom 
I have trained to read slowly and with 
proper emphasis (a practice too much neg- 
lected in our modern systems of educa- 
tion), read aloud to me the excellent essay 
upon "Old Age," the authour of which I 
cannot help suspecting to be a young man 
who has never yet known what it was to 
have snow (canities morosa) upon his own 
roof. Dissolve frigus, large super foco lig- 
na reponens, is a rule for the young, whose 
wood-pile is yet abundant for such cheerful 
lenitives. A good life behind him is the 
best thing to keep an old man's shoulders 
from shivering at every breath of sorrow or 
ill-fortune. But methinks it were easier 



THE BIGLOW TAPERS. 



239 



for an old man to feel the disadvantages of 
youth than the advantages of age. Of these 
latter I reckon one of the chiefest to be 
this : that we attach a less inordinate value 
to our own productions, and, distrusting 
daily more and more our own wisdom (with 
the conceit whereof at twenty we wrap our- 
selves away from knowledge as with a gar- 
ment), do reconcile ourselves with the wis- 
dom of God. I could have wished, indeed, 
that room might have been made for the 
residue of the anecdote relating to Deacon 
Tinkham, which would not only have grat- 
ified a natural curiosity on the part of the 
publick (as I have reason to know from 
several letters of inquiry already received), 
but would also, as I think, have largely in- 
creased the circulation of your Magazine in 
this town. Nihil humani cdienum, there 
is a curiosity about the affairs of our neigh- 
bors which is not only pardonable, but even 
commendable. But I shall abide a more 
fitting season. 

As touching the following literary effort 
of Esquire Biglow, much might be profita- 
bly said on the topick of Idyliick and Pas- 
toral Poetry, and concerning the proper 
distinctions to be made between them, from 
Theocritus, the inventor of the former, to 
Collins, the latest authour I know of who 
has emulated the classicks in the latter 
style. But in the time of a Civil War wor- 
thy a Milton to defend and a Lucan to sing, 
it may be reasonably doubted whether the 
publick, never too studious of serious in- 
struction, might not consider other objects 
more deserving of present attention. Con- 
cerning the title of Idyll, which Mr. Biglow 
has adopted at my suggestion, it may not 
be improper to animadvert, that the name 
properly signifies a poem somewhat rustick 
in phrase (for, though the learned are not 
agreed as to the particular dialect employed 
by Theocritus, they are universanimon.s 
both as to its rusticity and its capacity of 
rising now and then to the level of more 
elevated sentiments and expressions), while 
it is also descriptive of real scenery and 
manners. Yet it must be admitted that the 
production now in question ( which here and 
there bears perhaps too plainly the marks 
of my correcting hand) does partake of the 
nature of a Pastoral, inasmuch as the in- 
terlocutors therein are purely imaginary 
beings, and the whole is little better than 
Kawov o-Kias hvap. The plot was, as I be- 
lieve, suggested by the " Twa Briggs " of 
Robert Burns, a Scottish poet of the last 
century, as that found its prototype in the 
" Mutual Complaint of Plainstanes and 
Causey " by Fergusson, though the metre 
of this latter be different by a foot in each 
verse. I reminded my talented young par- 



ishioner and friend that Concord Bridge 
had long since yielded to the edacious tooth 
of Time. But he answered me to this ef- 
fect : that there was no greater mistake of 
an authour than to suppose the reader had 
no fancy of his own ; that, if once that fac- 
ulty was to be called into activity, it were 
better to be in for the whole sheep than the 
shoulder ; and that he knew Concord like 
a book, — an expression questionable in 
propriety, since there are few things with 
which he is not more familiar than with 
the printed page. In proof of what he af- 
firmed, he showed me some verses which 
witli others he had stricken out as too much 
delaying the action, but which I communi- 
cate in this place because they rightly de- 
fine "punkin-seed " (which Mr. Bartlett 
would have a kind of perch, — a creature 
to which I have found a rod or pole not to 
be so easily equivalent in our inland waters 
as in the books of arithmetic), and because 
it conveys an eulogium on the worthy son 
of an excellent father, with whose acquaint- 
ance {eheu, fug aces anni!) I was formerly 
honoured. . 

"But nowadays the Bridge ain't wut they 

show, 
So much ez Em'son, Hawthorne, an' Thoreau. 
I know the village, though ; was sent there 

once 
A-schoolin', 'cause to home I played the 

dunce ; 
An' I 've ben sence a-visitin' the Jedge, 
Whose garding whispers with the river's edge r 
Where I 've sot mornin's lazy as the bream, 
Whose on'y business is to head up-stream, 
(We call 'em punkin-seed,) or else in chat 
Along 'th the Jedge, who covers with his hat 
More wit an' gumption an' shrewd Yankee 

sense 
Than there is mosses on an ole stone fence." 

Concerning the subject-matter of the 
verses, I have not the leisure at present to 
write so fully as I could wish, my time be- 
ing occupied with the preparation of a dis- 
course for the forthcoming bi-centenary 
celebration of the first settlement of Jaa- 
lam East Parish. It may gratify the pub- 
lick interest to mention the circumstance, 
that my investigations to this end have 
enabled me to verify the fact (of much his- 
torick importance, and hitherto hotly de- 
bated) that Shearjashub Tarbox was the 
first child of white parentage born in this 
town, being named in his father's will 
under date August 7th, or 9th, 1662. 
It is well known that those who advocate 
the claims of Mehetable Goings are unable 
to find any trace of her existence prior to 
October of that year. As respects the set- 
tlement of the Mason and Slidell question, 
Mr. Biglow has not incorrectly stated the 



240 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



popular sentiment, so far as I can judge 
by its expression in this locality. For 
myself, I feel more sorrow than resent- 
ment: for I am old enough to have heard 
those talk of England who still, even after 
the unhappy estrangement, could not un- 
school their lips from calling her the 
Moth er-Country. But England has insisted 
on ripping up old wounds, and has undone 
the healing work of fifty years ; for nations 
do not reason, they only feel, and the spre- 
tce injuria fornue rankles in their minds as 
bitterly as in that of a woman. And be- 
cause this is so, I feel the more satisfaction 
that our Government has acted (as all Gov- 
ernments should, standing as they do be- 
tween the people and their passions) as 
if it had arrived at years of discretion. 
There are three short and simple words, 
the hardest of all to pronounce in any lan- 
guage (and I suspect they were no easier 
before the confusion of tongues), but which 
no man or nation that cannot utter can 
claim to have arrived at manhood. Those 
words are, I was wrong ; and I am proud 
that, while England played the boy, our 
rulers had strength enough from the Peo- 
ple below and wisdom enough from God 
above to quit themselves like men. 

The sore points on both sides have been 
skilfully exasperated by interested and 
unscrupulous persons, who saw in a war 
between the two countries the only hope 
of profitable return for their investment in 
Confederate stock, whether political or 
financial. The always supercilious, often 
insulting, and sometimes even brutal tone 
of British journals and publick men has 
certainly not tended to soothe whatever 
resentment might exist in America. 

" Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, 
But why did you kick me down stairs ? " 

We have no reason to complain that 
England, as a necessary consequence of 
her clubs, has become a great society for 
the minding of other people's business, 
and we can smile good-naturedly when she 
lectures other nations on the sins of arro- 
gance and conceit; but we may justly con- 
sider it a breach of the political convenances 
which are expected to regulate the inter- 
course of one well-bred government with 
another, when men holding places in the 
ministry allow themselves to dictate our 
domestic policy, to instruct us in our duty, 
and to stigmatize as unholy a war for the 
rescue of whatever a high-minded people 
should hold most vital and most sacred. 
Was it in good taste, that I may use the 
mildest term, for Earl Russell to expound 
our own Constitution to President Lincoln, 



or to make a new and fallacious applica- 
tion of an old phrase for our benefit, and 
tell us that the Rebels were fighting for in- 
dependence and we for empire ? As if all 
wars for independence were by nature just 
and deserving of sympathy, and all wars 
for empire ignoble and worthy only of 
reprobation, or as if these easy phrases in 
any way characterized this terrible strug- 
gle, — terrible not so truly in any superfi- 
cial sense, as from the essential and deadly 
enmity of the principles that underlie it. 
His Lordship's bit of borrowed rhetoric 
would justify Smith O'Brien, Nana Sahib, 
and the Maori chieftains, while it would 
condemn nearly every war in which Eng- 
land has ever been engaged. Was it so 
very presumptuous in us to think that it 
would be decorous in English statesmen 
if they spared time enough to acquire some 
kind of knowledge, though of the most 
elementary kind, in regard to this country 
and the questions at issue here, before they 
pronounced so off-hand a judgment? Or 
is political information expected to come 
Dogberry-fashion in England, like reading 
and writing, by nature ? 

And now all respectable England is won- 
dering at our irritability, and sees a quite 
satisfactory explanation of it in our na- 
tional vanity. Suave mart magno, it is 
pleasant, sitting in the easy-chairs of 
Downing Street, to sprinkle pepper on the 
raw wounds of a kindred people struggling 
for life, and philosophical to find in self- 
conceit the cause of our instinctive resent- 
ment. Surely we were of all nations the 
least liable to any temptation of vanity at 
a time when the gravest anxiety and the 
keenest sorrow were never absent from our 
hearts. Nor is conceit the exclusive attri- 
bute of any one nation. The earliest of 
English travellers, Sir John Mandeville, 
took a less provincial view of the matter 
when he said, " For fro what partie of the 
erthe that men duellen, other aboven or 
beneathen, it semethe alweys to hem that 
duellen that thei gon more righte than any 
other folke." The English have always 
had their fair share of this amiable quality. 
We may say of them still, as the authour of 
the Lettres Cabalistiques said of them 
more than a century ago, " Ces derniers 
disent naturellement qu'il rty a qu'eux qui 
soient estimables." And, as he also says, 
" J'aimerois presque mutant tomber entre 
les mains d'un Inquisiteur que d'un An- 
glois qui me fait sentir sans cesse combien 
il s'estime plus que moi, et qui ne daigne 
me parler que pour injurier ma Nation et 
pour m'ennuyer da recit des grandes quali- 
ies de la sienne." Of this Bull we may 
safely say with Horace, habet fcenum in 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



241 



comu. What we felt to "be especially in- 
sulting was the quiet assumption that the 
descendants of men who left the Old World 
for the sake of principle, and who had made 
the wilderness into a New World patterned 
after an Idea, could not possibly be sus- 
ceptible of a generous or lofty sentiment, 
could have no feeling of nationality deeper 
than that of a tradesman for his shop. 
One would have thought, in listening to 
England, that we were presumptuous in 
fancying that we were a nation at all, or 
had any other principle of union than that 
of booths at a fair, where there is no higher 
notion of government than the constable, 
or better image of God than that stamped 
upon the current coin. 

It is time for Englishmen to consider 
whether there was nothing in the spirit of 
their press and of their leading public men 
calculated to rouse a just indignation, and 
to cause a permanent estrangement on 
the part of any nation capable of self-re- 
spect, and sensitively jealous, as ours then 
was, of foreign interference. Was there 
nothing in the indecent haste with which 
belligerent rights were conceded to the. 
Rebels, nothing in the abrupt tone assumed 
in the Trent case, nothing in the fitting 
out of Confederate privateers, that might 
stir the blood of a people already over- 
charged with doubt, suspicion, and terrible 
responsibility ? The laity in any country 
do not stop to consider points of law, but 
they have an instinctive appreciation of 
the animus that actuates the policy of a 
foreign nation ; and in our own case they 
remembered that the British authorities in 
Canada did not wait till diplomacy could 
send home to England for her slow official 
tinder-box to fire the " Caroline." Add to 
this, what every sensible American knew, 
that the moral support of England was 
equal to an army of two hundred thousand 
men to the Rebels, while it insured us an- 
other year or two of exhausting war. It 
was not so much the spite of her words 
(though the time might have been more 
tastefully chosen) as the actual power for 
evil in them that we felt as a deadly wrong. 
Perhaps the most immediate and efficient 
cause of mere irritation was the sudden 
and unaccountable change of manner on the 
other side of the water. Only six months 
before, the Prince of Wales had come .over 
to call us cousins ; and everywhere it was 
nothing but " our American brethren," 
that great offshoot of British institutions 
in the New World, so almost identical 
with them in laws, language, and litera- 
ture, — this last of the alliterative compli- 
ments being so bitterly true, that perhaps | 
it will not be retracted even now. To this | 
16 



outburst of long-repressed affection we re- 
sponded with genuine warmth, if with 
something of the awkwardness of a poor 
relation bewildered with the sudden tight- 
ening of the ties of consanguinity when it 
is rumored that he has come into a large 
estate. Then came the Rebellion, and, 
presto ! a flaw in our titles was discovered, 
the plate we were promised at the family 
table is flung at our head, and we were 
again the scum of creation, intolerably vul- 
gar, at once cowardly and overbearing, — 
no relations of theirs, after all, but a dreggy 
hybrid of the basest bloods of Europe. 
Panurge was not quicker to call Friar John 
his former friend. I cannot help thinking 
of Walter Mapes's jingling paraphrase of 
Petronius, — 

" Dummodo sim splendidis vestibus ornatus, 
Et multa familia sim circumvallatus, 
Prudens sum et sapiens et morigeratus, 
Et tuus nepos sum et tu meus cognatus," — 

which I may freely render thus : — 

So long as I was prosperous, 1 'd dinners by 

the dozen, 
Was well-bred, witty, virtuous, and everybody's 

cousin ; 
If luck should turn, as well she may, her fancy 

is so flexile, 
Will virtue, cousinship, and all return with 

her from exile? 

There was nothing in all this to exasper- 
ate a philosopher, much to make him smile 
rather ; but the earth's surface is not chiefly 
inhabited by philosophers, and I revive the 
recollection of it now in perfect good-hu- 
mour, merely by way of suggesting to our 
ci-devant British cousins, that it would 
have been easier for them to hold their 
tongues than for us to keep our tempers 
under the circumstances. 

The English Cabinet made a blunder, 
unquestionably, in taking it so hastily for 
granted that the United States had fallen 
forever from their position as a first-rate 
power, and it was natural that they should 
vent a little of their vexation on the people 
whose inexplicable obstinacy in maintain- 
ing freedom and order, and in resisting 
degradation, was likely to convict them of 
their mistake. But if bearing a grudge be 
the sure mark of a small mind in the indi- 
vidual, can it be a proof of high spirit in 
a nation ? If the result of the present es- 
trangement between the two countries shall 
be to make us more independent of British 
twaddle ( Indomito nee clira f evens stipen- 
dia Tauro), so much the better ; but if it 
is to make us insensible to the value of 
British opinion in matters where it gives 
us the judgment of an impartial and culti- 



242 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



vated outsider, if we are to shut ourselves 
out from the advantages of English culture, 
the loss will be ours, and not theirs. Be- 
cause the door of the old homestead has 
been once slammed in our faces, shall we 
in a huff reject all future advances of con- 
ciliation, and cut ourselves foolishly off 
from any share in the humanizing influen- 
ces of the place, with its ineffable riches of 
association, its heirlooms of immemorial 
culture, its historic monuments, ours no 
less than theirs, its noble gallery of ances- 
tral portraits ? We have only to succeed, 
and England will not only respect, but, for 
the first time, begin to understand us. 
And let us not, in our justifiable indigna- 
tion at wanton insult, forget that England 
is not the England only of snobs who dread 
the democracy they do not comprehend, 
but the England of history, of heroes, 
statesmen, and poets, whose names are 
dear, and their influence as salutary to us 
as to her. 

Let us strengthen the hands of those in 
authority over us, and curb our own 
tongues, remembering that General Wait 
commonly proves in the end more than a 
match for General Headlong, and that the 
Good Book ascribes safety to a multitude, 
indeed, but not to a mob, of counsellours. 
Let us remember and perpend the words 
of Paulus Emilius to the people of Rome ; 
that, "if they judged they could manage 
the war to more advantage by any other, 
he would willing yield up his charge ; but 
if they confided in him, they were not to 
make themselves his colleagues in his office, 
or raise reports, or criticise his actions, 
but, without talking, supply him with 
means and assistance necessary to the car- 
rying on of the war ; for, if they proposed 
to command their own commander, they 
would render this expedition more ridicu- 
lous than the former.'" ( Vide Plutarchum 
in Vita P. E. ) Let us also not forget what 
the same excellent authour says concern- 
ing Perseus's fear of spending money, and 
not permit the covetousness of Brother 
Jonathan to be the good fortune of Jeffer- 
son Davis. For my own- part, till I am 
ready to admit the Commander-in-Chief 
to my pulpit, I shall abstain from plan- 
ning his battles. If courage be the sword, 
yet is patience the armour of a nation ; 
and in our desire for peace, let us never be 
willing to surrender the Constitution be- 
queathed us by fathers at least as wise as 
ourselves (even with Jefferson Davis to 
help us), and, with those degenerate Ro- 
mans, tuta et presentia quamvetera et pe- 
riculosa malle. 

And not only should we bridle our own 
tongues, but the pens of others, which are 



swift to convey useful intelligence to the 
enemy. This is no new inconvenience ; 
for, under date, 3d June, 1745, General 
Pepperell wrote thus to Governor Shirley 
from Louisbourg : " What your Excel- 
lency observes of the army's being made 
acquainted with any plans proposed, un- 
til ready to be put in execution, has always 
been disagreeable to me, and I have given 
many cautions relating to it. But when 
your Excellency considers that our Coun- 
cil of War consists of more than txoenty 
members, I am persuaded you will think it 
impossible for me to hinder it, if any of 
them will persist in communicating to in- 
ferior officers and soldiers what ought to 
be kept secret. I am informed that the Bos- 
ton newspapers are filled witli paragraphs 
from private letters relating to the expe- 
dition. Will your Excellency permit me 
to say I think it may be of ill consequence ? 
Would it not be convenient, if your Excel- 
lency should forbid the Printers' inserting 
such news { " Verily, if tempora mutan- 
tur, we may question the et nos mutamur 
in Mis ; and if tongues be leaky, it will 
need all hands at the pumps to save the 
Ship of State. Our history dotes and re- 
peats itself. If Sassycus (rather than Al- 
cibiades) find a parallel in Beauregard, so 
Weakwash, as he is called by the brave 
Lieutenant Lion Gardiner, need not seek 
far among our own Sachems for his anti- 
type. 
With respect, 

Your ob* humble serv*, 

Homer Wilbur, A. M. 



I love to start out arter night 's begun, 
An' all the chores about the farm are 

done, 
The critters milked an' foddered, gates 

shet fast, 
Tools cleaned aginst to-morrer, supper 

past, 
An' Nancy darnin' by her ker'sene 

lamp, — 
I love, I say, to start upon a tramp, 
To shake the kinkles out o' back an 

legs, 
An' kind o' rack my life off from the 

dregs 
Thet 's apt to settle in the buttery-hutch 
Of folks thet foller in one rut too much : 
Hard work is good an' wholesome, past 

all doubt; 
But 't ain't so, ef the mind gits tuck- 
ered out. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



243 



Now, bein' born in Middlesex, you 

know, 
There 's certin spots where I like best 

to go : 
The Concord road, for instance, (I, for 

one, 
Most gin'lly oilers call it John BulVs 

Run, ) 
The ''held o' Lexin'ton where England 

tried 
The fastest colours thet she ever dyed, 
An' Concord Bridge, thet Davis, when 

he came, 
Found was the bee-line track to heaven 

an' fame, 
Ez all roads be by natur', ef your soul 
Don't sneak thru shun-pikes so 's to 

save the toll. 

They 're 'most too fur away, take too 

much time 
To visit of en, ef it ain't in rhyme ; 
But the' 's a walk thet 's hendier, a 

t sight, 
An' suits me fust-rate of a winter's 

night, — 
I mean the round whale' s-back o' Pros- 
pect Hill. 
I love to Titer there while night grows 

still, 
An' in the twinklin' villages about, 
Fust here, then there, the well- saved 

lights goes out, 
An' nary sound but watch-dogs' false 

alarms, 
Or muffled cock-crows from the drowsy 

farms, 
Where some wise rooster (men act jest 

thet way) 
Stands to 't thet moon-rise is the break 

o' day: 
(So Mister Seward sticks a three-months' 

pin 
Where the war 'd oughto eend, then 

tries agin ; 
My gran'ther's rule was safer 'n 't is to 

crow : 
Don't never projohesy — onless ye know.) 
I love to muse there till it kind o' seems 
Ez ef the world went eddyin' off in 

dreams ; 
The northwest wind thet twitches at my 

baird 
Blows out o' sturdier days not easy 

scared, 
An' the same moon thet this December 

shines 



Starts out the tents an' booths o' Put- 
nam's lines ; 

The rail-fence posts, acrost the hill thet 
runs, 

Turn ghosts o' sogers should' rin' ghosts 
o' guns; 

Ez wheels the sentry, glints a flash o' 
light, 

Along^ the firelock won at Concord 

, ? i §! it ' 

An', 'twixt the silences, now fur, now 

nigh, 
Rings the sharp chellenge, hums the 

low reply. 

Ez I was settin' so, it warn't long sence, 
Mixin' the puffict with the present 

tense, 
I heerd two voices som'ers in the air, 
Though, ef I was to die, I can't tell 

where : 
Voices I call 'em : 't was a kind o' 

sough 
Like pine-trees thet the wind 's ageth- 

'rin' through ; 
An', fact, 1 thought it was the wind a 

spell, 
Then some misdoubted, could n't fairly 

tell, 
Fust sure, then not, jest as you hold an 

eel, 
I knowed, an' did n't, — fin'lly seemed 

to feel 
'T was Concord Bridge a talkin' off to 

kill 
With the Stone Spike thet 's druv thru 

Bunker Hill ; 
Whether 't was so, or ef I on'y dreamed, 
I could n't say ; I tell it ez it seemed. 

THE BRIDGE. 

Wal, neighbor, tell us wut 's turned up 

thet 's new ? 
You 're younger 'n I be, — nigher Bos- 
ton, tu: 
An' down to Boston, ef you take their 

showin', 
Wut they don't know ain't hardly wuth 

the knowin'. 
There 's sunthin goin' on, I know : las' 

night 
The British sogers killed in our gret 

fight 
(Nigh fifty year they hed n't stirred nor 

spoke) 
Made sech a coil you 'd thought a dam 

hed broke: 



244 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Why, one lie up an' beat a revellee 

With his own crossbones on a holler 
tree, 

Till all the graveyards swarmed out like 
a hive 

With faces I hain't seen sence Seventy- 
five. 

Wut is the news? 'T ain't good, or 
they 'd be eheerin'. 

Speak slow an' clear, for I 'm some hard 
o' hearin'. 

THE MONIMENT. 

1 don't know hardly ef it 's good or 
bad, — 

THE BRIDGE. 

At wust, it can't be wus than wut we 've 
had. 

THE MONIMENT. 

You know them envys thet the Rebbles 

sent, 
An' Cap'n Wilkes he borried o' the 

Trent? 

THE BRIDGE. 

Wut ! they ha'n't hanged 'em ? Then 

their wits is gone ! 
Thet 's the sure way to make a goose a 

swan ! 

THE MONIMENT. 

No: England she would hev 'em, Fee, 

Faw, Fum! 
(Ez though she hed n't fools enough to 

home,) 
So they 've returned 'em — 

THE BRIDGE. 

Hev they ? Wal, by heaven, 
Thet 's the wust news I 've heerd sence 

Seventy-seven ! 
By George, I meant to say, though I 

declare 
It 's 'most enough to make a deacon 

swear. 

THE MONIMENT. 

Now don't go off half-cock : folks never 

gains 
By usin' pepper-sarse instid o' brains. 
Come, neighbor, you don't understand — 

THE BRIDGE. 

How? Hey? 
Not understand? Why, wut 's to hen- 
der, pray? 



Must I go huntin' round to find a chap 
To tell me when my face hez hed a slap ? 

THE MONIMENT. 

See here : the British they found out a 

Haw 
In Cap'n Wilkes's readin' o' the law : 
(They make all laws, you know, an' so, 

o' course, 
It 's nateral they should understan' their 

force :) 
He 'd oughto ha' took the vessel into port, 
An' hed her sot on by a reg'lar court ; 
She was a mail-ship, an' a steamer, tu, 
An' thet, they say, hez changed the 

pint o' view, 
Coz the old practice, bein' meant for 

sails, 
Ef tried upon a steamer, kind o' fails; 
You may take out despatches, but you 

mus' n't 
Take nary man — 

THE BRIDGE. 

You mean to say, you dus' n't ! 
Changed pint o' view ! No, no, — it 's 
overboard 

With law an' gospel, when their ox is 

gored ! 
I tell ye, England's law, on sea an' land, 
Hez oilers ben, "I've gut the heaviest 

hand." 
Take nary man? Fine preachin' from 

her lips ! 
Why, she hez taken hunderds from our 

ships, 
An' would agin, an' swear she had a 

right to, 
Ef we warn't strong enough to be perlite 

to. 
Of all the sarse thet 1 can call to mind, 
England duos make the most on pleasant 

kind : 
It 's you 're the sinner oilers, she 's the 

saint ; 
Wut 's good 's all English, all thet is n't 

ain't ; 
Wut profits her is oilers right an' just, 
An' ef you don't read Script ur so, you 

must ; 
She 's praised herself ontil she fairly 

thinks 
There ain't no light in Natur when she 

winks ; 
Hain't she the Teu Comman'ments in 

her pus ? 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



245 



Could the world stir 'thout she went, tu, j Ez though she done it all, an' ten times 



ez nus ? 
She ain't like other mortals, thet 's a 

fact : 
She never stopped the habus-corpus act, 
Nor specie payments, nor she never yet 
Cut down the int'rest on her public 

debt ; 
She don't put down rebellions, lets 'em 

breed, 
An' 's oilers willin' Ireland should se- 
cede ; 
She 's all thet 's honest, honnable, an' 

fair, 
An' when the vartoos died they made 

her heir. 

THE MONIMENT. 

Wal, wal, two wrongs don't never make 

a right ; 
Ef we 're mistaken, own up, an' don't 

fight: 
For gracious' sake, ha' n't we enough to 

du 
'thout gettin' up a fight with England, 

tu? 
She thinks we 're rabble-rid — 

THE BRIDGE. 

An' so we can't 
Distinguish 'twixt You ought nt an' 

You sha' nt! 
She j edges by herself; she 's no idear 
How 't stiddies folks to give 'em their 

fair sheer : 
The odds 'twixt her an' us is plain 's a 

steeple, — 
Her People 's turned to Mob, our Mob 's 

turned People. 

THE MONIMENT. 

She 's riled jes' now — 

THE BRIDGE. 

Plain proof her cause ain't strong, — 

The one'thet fust gits mad 's 'most oilers 
wrong. 

Why, sence she helped in lickin' Nap the 
Fust, 

An' pricked a bubble jest agoin' to 
bust, 

With Rooshy, Prooshy, Austry, all as- 
sisting 

Th' ain't nut a face but wut she 's shook 
her fist in, 



more, 
An' nothin' never hed gut done afore, 
Nor never could agin', 'thout she wuz 

spliced 
On to one eend an' gin th' old airth a 

hoist. 
She is some punkins, thet I wun't deny, 
(For ain't she some related to you 'n' 

i?) 

But there 's a few small intrists here 

below 
Outside the counter o' John Bull an' 

Co, 
An', though they can't conceit how 't 

should be so, 
I guess the Lord druv down Creation's 

spiles 
'thout no gret helpin' from th'e British 

Isles, 
An' could contrive to keep things pooty 

stiff 
Ef they withdrawed from business in a 

miff; 
I ha' n't no patience with sech swellin' 

fellers ez 
Think God can't forge 'thout them to 

blow the bellerses. 

THE MONIMENT. 

You 're oilers quick to set your back 

aridge, 
Though 't suits a tom-cat more 'n a 

sober bridge : 
Don't you git het : they thought the 

thing was planned ; 
They '11 cool off when they come to 

understand. 

THE BRIDGE. 

Ef thet 's wut you expect, you '11 hev 

to wait : 
Folks never understand the folks they 

hate : 
She '11 fin' some other grievance jest ez 

good, 
'fore the month 's out, to git misunder- 
stood. 
England cool off ! She '11 do it, ef she 

sees 
She 's run her head into a swarm o' 

bees. 
I ain't so prejudiced ez wut you spose : 
I hev thought England was the best 

thet goes ; 



246 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Remember (no, you can't), when I was 

reared, 
God save the King was all the tune you 

heerd : 
But it \s enough to turn Wachuset roun' 
This stumpin' fellers when you think 

they 're down. 

THE MONIMENT. 

But, neighbor, ef they prove their claim 

at law, 
The best way is to settle, an' not jaw. 
An' don't le' 's mutter 'bout the awfle 

bricks 
"We '11 give 'em, ef we ketch 'em in a 

fix : 
That 'ere 's most frequently the kin' o' 

talk 
Of critters can't be kicked to toe the 

chalk ; 
Your "You'll see nex' time!" an' 

" Look out bumby ! " 
'Most oilers ends in eatin' umble-pie. 
'T wun't pay to scringe to England : 

will it pay 
To fear that meaner bully, old "They '11 



say 



" ? 



Suppose they du say : words are dreffle 

bores, 
But they ain't quite so bad ez seventy- 
fours. 
Wut England wants is jest a wedge to 

fit 
Where it '11 help to widen out our split : 
She 's found her wedge, an' 't ain't for 

us to come 
An' lend the beetle thet's to drive it 

home. 
For growed-up folks like us 't would be 

a scandle, 
When we git sarsed, to fly right off the 

handle. 
England ain't all bad, coz she thinks 

us blind : 
Ef she can't change her skin, she can 

her mind ; 
An' we shall see her change it double- 
quick, 
Soon ez we 've proved thet we 're a-goin' 

to lick. 
She an' Columby 's gut to be fas' friends : 
For the world prospers by their privit 

ends : 
'T would put the clock back all o' fifty 

years 
Ef they should fall together by the ears. 



THE BRIDGE. 

I 'gree to thet ; she 's nigh us to wut 

France is ; 
But then she '11 hev to make the fust 

advances ; 
We 've gut pride, tu, an' gut it by good 

rights, 
An' ketch me stoopin' to pick up the 

mites 
0' condescension she '11 be lettin' fall 
When she finds out we ain't dead arter 

all! 
I tell ye wut, it takes more 'n one good 

week 
Afore my nose forgits it 's hed a tweak. 

THE MONIMENT. 

She '11 come out right bumby, thet I '11 

engage, 
Soon ez she gits to seein' we 're of age ; 
This talkin' down o' hers ain't wuth 

a fuss ; 
It 's nat'ral ez nut likin' 't is to us ; 
Ef we 're agoin' to prove we be growed- 

,m Up ' 
T wunt be by barkin' like a tarrier pup, 

But turnin' to an' makin' things ez 

good 
Ez wut we 're oilers braggin' that we 

could ; 
We 're bound to be good friends, an' so 

we 'd oughto, 
In spite of all the fools both sides the 

water. 

THE BRIDGE. 

I b'lieve thet 's so ; but hearken in your 

ear, — 
I 'm older 'n you, — Peace wun't keep 

house with Fear : 
Ef you want peace, the thing you 've 

gut to du 
Is jes' to show you 're up to fightin', tu. 
/recollect how sailors' rights was won, 
Yard locked in yard, hot gun-lip kissin' 

gun: 
Why, afore thet, John Bull sot up thet 

he 
Hed gut a kind o' mortgage on the sea ; 
You 'd thought he held by Gran'ther 

Adam's will, 
An' ef you knuckle down, he '11 think 

so still. 
Better thet all our ships an' all their 

crews 
Should sink to rot in ocean's dreamless 

ooze, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS, 
wavin' chellenge ez it 



247 



Each torn 

went, 
An' each, dumb gun a brave man's moni- 

ment, 
Than seek sech peace ez only cowards 

crave : 
Give ?ne the peace of dead men or of 

brave ! 

THE MONIMENT. 

I say, ole boy, it ain't the Glorious 

Fourth: 
You 'd oughto larned 'fore this wut talk 

wuz worth. 
It ain't our nose thet gits put out o' 

jint ; 
It 's England thet gives up her dearest 

pint. 
"We 've gut, I tell ye now, enough to du 
In our own fem'ly fight, afore we 're 

thru. 
I hoped, las' spring, jest arter Sumter's 

shame, 
When every flag-staff flapped its teth- 
ered flame, 
An' all the people, startled from their 

doubt, 
Come must'rin' to the flag with sech a 

shout, — 
I hoped to see things settled 'fore this 

fall, 
The Rebbles licked, Jeff Davis hanged, 

an' all ; 
Then come Bull Eun, an' sence then 

I 've ben waitin' 
Like boys in Jennooary thaw for skatin', 
Nothin' to du but watch my shadder's 

trace 
Swing, like a ship at anchor, roun' my 

base, 
With daylight's flood an' ebb : it 's 

gittin' slow, 
An' I 'most think we 'd better let 'em go. 
I tell ye wut, this war 's a-goin' to 

cost — 

THE BRIDGE. 

An' I tell you it wun't be money lost ; 
Taxes milks dry, but, neighbor, you '11 

allow 
Thet havin' things onsettled kills the 

cow : 
We 've gut to fix this thing for good an' 

all ; 
It 's no use buildin' wut 's a-goin' to fall. 
I 'm older 'n you, an' I 've seen things 

an men, 



An' my experunce, — tell ye wut it 's 

ben: 
Folks thet worked thorough was the 

ones thet thriv, 
But bad work follers ye ez long 's ye 

live; 
You can't git red on 't ; jest ez sure ez 

sin, 
It 's oilers askin' to be done agin : 
Ef we should part, it would n't be a 

week 
'Fore your soft-soddered peace would 

spring aleak. 
We 've turned our cuffs up, but, to put 

her thru, 
We must git mad an' off with jackets, 

tu; 
'T wun't du to think thet killin' ain't 

perlite, — 
You 've gut to be in airnest, ef you 

fight; 
Why, two-thirds o' the Rebbles 'ould 

cut dirt, 
Ef they once thought thet Guv'ment 

meant to hurt ; 
An' I du wish our Gin'rals hed in mind 
The folks in front more than the folks 

behind ; 
You wun't do much ontil you think it 's 

God, 
An' not constitoounts, thet holds the 

rod; 
We want some more o' Gideon's sword, 

Ijedge, 
For proclamations ha'n't no gret of edge ; 
There 's nothin' for a cancer but the 

knife, 
Onless you set by 't more than by your 

life. 
/ ' ve seen hard times ; I see a war begun 
Thet folks thet love their bellies never 'd 

won; 
Pharo's lean kine hung on for seven long 

year; 
But when 't was done, we did n't count 

it dear. 
Why, law an' order, honor, civil right, 
Ef they ain't wuth it, wut is wuth a 

fight? 
I 'm older 'n you : the plough, the axe, 

the mill, 
All kin's o' labor an' all kin's o' skill, 
Would be a rabbit in a wile- cat's claw, 
Ef 't warmt for thet slow critter, 'stab- 

lishedlaw; 
Onsettle thet, an' all the world goes 

whiz, 



248 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



A screw 's gut loose in every thin' there 
is: 

Good buttresses once settled, don't you 
fret 

An' stir 'em; take a bridge's word for 
thet! 

Young folks are smart, but all ain't good 
thet 's new ; 

I guess the gran'thers they knowed sun- 
thin', tu. 

THE MONIMENT. 

Amen to thet ! build sure in the begin- 

nin': 
An' then don't never tech the underpin- 

nin' : 
Th' older a guv'ment is, the better 't 

suits ; 
New ones hunt folks's corns out like new 

boots : 
Change jes' for change, is like them big 

hotels 
Where they shift plates, an' let ye live 

on smells. 

THE BRIDGE. 

_Wal, don't give up afore the ship goes 

down : 
It 's a stiff gale, but Providence wun't 

drown ; 
An' God wun't leave us yit to sink or 

swim, 
Ef we don't fail to du wut's right by 

Him. 
This land o' ourn, I tell ye, 's gut to be 
A better country than man ever see. 
I feel my sperit swellin' with a cry 
Thet seems to say, " Break forth an' 

prophesy ! " 
strange New "World, thet yit wast 

never young, 
"Whose youth from thee by gripin' need 

was wrung, 
Brown foundlin' o' the woods, whose 

baby-bed 
Was prowled roun' by the Injun's crack - 

lin' tread, 
An' who grew'st strong thru shifts an' 

wants an' pains, 
Nussed by stern men with empires in 

their brains, 
Who saw in vision their young Ishmel 

strain 
With each hard hand a vassal ocean's 

mane, 
Thou, skilled by Freedom an' by gret 

events 



To pitch new States ez Old- World men 

pitch tents, 
Thou, taught by Fate to know Jehovah's 

plan 
Thet man's devices can't unmake a man, 
An' whose free latch-string never was 

drawed in 
Against the poorest child of Adam's 

kin, — 
The grave's not dug where traitor 

hands shall lay 
In fearful haste thy murdered corse 

away ! 
I see — 

Jest here some dogs begun to bark, 
So thet I lost old Concord's last remark : 
I listened long, but all I seemed to hear 
Was dead leaves gossipin' on some birch- 
trees near ; 
But ez they hedn't no gret things to 

, say ', 
An' sed 'em often, I come right away, 

An', walkin' home'ards, jest to pass the 

time, 
I put some thoughts thet bothered me 

in rhyme ; 
I hain't hed time to fairly try 'em on, 
But here they be — it 's 



JONATHAN TO JOHN. 

It don't seem hardly right, John, 
When both my hands was full, 
To stump me to a fight, John, — 
Your cousin, tu, John Bull ! 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
We know it now," sez he, 
"The lion's paw is all the law, 
Accordin' to J. B., 
Thet 's fit for you an' me!" 

You wonder why we 're hot, John ? 

Your mark wuz on the guns, 
The neutral guns, thet shot, John, 
Our brothers an' our sons : 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
There 's human blood," sez he, 
" By fits an' starts, in Yankee hearts, 
Though 't may surprise J. B. 
More 'n it would you an' me." 

Ef / turned mad dogs loose, John, 
On your front-parlor stairs, 

Would it jest meet your views, John, 
To wait an' sue their heirs ? 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



249 



Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, 
I on'y guess," sez he, 
" Thet ef Vattel on his toes fell, 
'T would kind o' rile J. B., 
Ez wal ez you an' me ! " 

Who made the law thet hurts, John, 

Heads I win, — ditto tails ? 
" J. B." was on his shirts, John, 
Onless my memory fails, 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
(I 'm good at thet)," sez he, 
"Thet sauce for goose ain't jest the 
juice 
For ganders with J. B., 
No more 'n with you or me !" 

When your rights was our wrongs, 
John, 
You did n't stop for fuss, — 
Britanny's trident prongs, John, 
Was good 'nough law for us. 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, 
Though physic 's good," sez he, 
" It does n't toiler thet he can swaller 
Prescriptions signed ' J. B.,' 
Put up by you an' me ! " 

We own the ocean, tu, John : 

You mus' n' take it hard, 
Ef we can't think with you, John. 

It 's jest your own back-yard. 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, 

Ef thet 's his claim," sez he, 
" The fencin' -stuff '11 cost enough 
To bust up friend J. B., 
Ez wal ez you an' me ! " 

Why talk so dreffle big, John, 

Of honor when it meant 
You did n't care a fig, John, 
But jest for ten per cent ? 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess 
He 's like the rest," sez he : 
* ' When all is done, it 's number one 
Thet 's nearest to J. B., 
Ez wal ez t' you an' me!" 

We give the critters back, John, 

Cos Abram thought 't was right ; 
It warn't your bullyin' clack, John, 
Provokin' us to tight. 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
We Ve a hard row," sez he, 
" To hoe jest now ; but thet somehow, 
May happen to J. B., 
Ez wal ez you an' me ! " 



We ain't so weak an' poor, John, 

With twenty million people, 
An' close to every door, John, 
A school-house an' a steeple. 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, 
It is a fact," sez he, 
" The surest plan to make a Man 
Is, think him so, J. B., 
Ez much ez you or me!" 

Our folks believe in Law, John ; 

An' it 's for her sake, now, 
They 've left the axe an' saw, John, 
The anvil an' the plough. 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, 
Ef 't warnt for law," sez he, 
" There 'd be one shindy from here to 
Indy ; 
An' thet don't suit J. B. 
(When 't ain't 'twixt you an' me ! ) " 

We know we 've got a cause, John, 

Thet 's honest, just, an' true ; 
We thought 't would win applause, John, 
Ef nowheres else, from you. 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess 
His love of right," sez he, 
' ' Hangs by a rotten fibre o' cotton : 
There 's natur' in J. B., 
Ez wal ez you an' me!" 

The South says, "Poor folks down/" 
John, 
An' "All men up ! " say we, — 
White, yaller, black, an' brown, John : 
Now which is your idee ? 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, 
John preaches wal," sez he ; 
" But, sermon thru, an' come to du, 
Why, there 's the old J. B. 
A crowdin' you an' me ! " 

Shall it be love, or hate, John ? 

It 's you thet 's to decide ; 
Ain 't your bonds held by Fate, John, 
Like all the Avorld's beside ? 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess 
Wise men forgive," sez he, 
" But not forget ; an' some time yet 
Thet truth may strike J. B., 
Ez wal ez you an' me!" 

God means to make this land, John, 

Clear thru, from sea to sea, 
Believe an' understand, John, 

The wuth o' bein' free. 



250 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, 
God's price is high," sez he ; 
1 ' But no-thin' else than wut He sells 
Wears long, an' thet J. B. 
May larn, like you an' me!" 



No. III. 

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO 
MR. HOSEA BIGLOW. 

With the following Letter from the Rev- 
erend Homer Wilbur, A. M. 

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam, 7th Feb., 1862. 
Respected Friends, — If I know my- 
self, — and surely a man can hardly be 
supposed to have overpassed the limit of 
fourscore years without attaining to some 
proficiency in that most useful branch of 
learning (e coelo descendit, says the pagan 
poet), — I have no great smack of that 
weakness which would press upon the pub- 
lick attention any matter pertaining to my 
private affairs. But since the following 
letter of Mr. Sawin contains not only a di- 
rect allusion to myself, but that in connec- 
tion with a topick of interest to all those 
engaged in the publick ministrations of the 
sanctuary, I may be pardoned for touching 
briefly thereupon. Mr. Sawin was never 
a stated attendant upon my preaching, — 
never, as I believe, even an occasional one, 
since the erection of the new house (where 
we now worship) in 1845. He did, indeed, 
for a time, supply a not unacceptable bass 
in the choir; but, whether on some um- 
brage {omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus) 
taken against the bass-viol, then, and till 
his decease in 1850 {cet. 77,) under the charge 
of Mr. Asaph Perley, or, as was reported 
by others, on account of an imminent sub- 
scription for a new bell, he thenceforth ab- 
sented himself from all outward and visible 
communion. Yet he seems to have pre- 
served {altd mente repostum), as it were, 
in the pickle of a mind soured by prejudice, 
a lasting scunner, as he would call it, 
against our staid and decent form of wor- 
ship ; for I would rather in that wise in- 
terpret his fling, than suppose that any 
chance tares sown by my pulpit discourses 
should survive so long, while good seed too 
often fails to root itself. I humbly trust 
that I have no personal feeling in the mat- 
ter i though I know that, if we sound any 



man deep enough, our lead shall bring up 
the mud of human nature at last. The 
Bretons believe in an evil spirit which they 
call ar c'houskezik, whose office it is to 
make the congregation drowsy ; and though 
I have never had reason to think that he 
was specially busy among my flock, yet 
have I seen enough to make me sometimes 
regret the hinged seats of the ancient meet- 
ing-house, whose lively clatter, not unwill- 
ingly intensified by boys beyond eyeshot 
of the tithing-man, served at intervals as a 
wholesome reveil. It is true, I have num- 
bered among my parishioners some who are 
proof against the prophylactick fennel, nay, 
whose gift of somnolence rivalled that of 
the Cretan Rip Van Winkle, Epimenides, 
and who, nevertheless, complained not so 
much of the substance as of the length of 
my (by them unheard) discourses. Some 
ingenious persons of a philosophick turn 
have assured us that our pulpits were set 
too high, and that the soporifick tendency 
increased with the ratio of the angle in 
which the hearer's eye was constrained to 
seek the preacher. This were a curious 
topick for investigation. There can be no 
doubt that some sermons are pitched too 
high, and I remember many struggles with 
the drowsy fiend in my youth. Happy 
Saint Anthony of Padua, whose finny aco- 
lytes, however they might profit, could 
never murmur ! Quarefremuerunt gentes I 
Who is he that can twice a week be in- 
spired, or has eloquence (ut ita dicam) 
always on tap? A good man, and, next 
to David, a sacred poet (himself, haply, 
not inexpert of evil in this particular), 
has said, — 

* The worst speak something good : if all want 
sense, 
God takes a text and preach eth patience." 

There are one or two other points in Mr. 
Sawin's letter which I would also briefly 
animadvert upon. And first, concerning 
the claim he sets up to a certain superiori- 
ty of blood and lineage in the people of our 
Southern States, now unhappily in rebel- 
lion against lawful authority and their own 
better interests. There is a sort of opin- 
ions, anachronisms at once and anachor- 
isms, foreign both to the age and the coun- 
try, that maintain a feeble and buzzing 
existence, scarce to be called life, like win- 
ter flies, which in mild weather crawl out 
from obscure nooks and crannits to expati- 
ate in the sun, and sometimes acquire vigor 
enough to disturb with their enforced fa- 
miliarity the studious hours of the scholar. 
One of the most stupid and pertinacious 
of these is the theory that the Southern 
States were settled by a class of emigrants 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



251 



from the Old World socially superior to 
those who founded the institutions of New 
England. The Virginians especially lay 
claim to this generosity of lineage, which 
were of no possible account, were it not 
for the fact that such superstitions are 
sometimes not without their effect on the 
course of human affairs. The early adven- 
turers to Massachusetts at least paid their 
passages ; no felons were ever shipped 
thither ; and though it be true that many 
deboshed younger brothers of what are 
called good families may have sought ref- 
uge in Virginia, it is equally certain that a 
great part of the early deportations thither 
were the sweepings of the London streets 
and the leavings of the London stews. It 
was this my Lord Bacon had in mind when 
he wrote : " It is a shameful and unblessed 
thing to take the scum of people and wicked 
condemned men to be the people with whom 
you plant." That certain names are found 
there is nothing to the purpose, for, even 
had an alias been beyond the invention of 
the knaves of that generation, it is known 
that servants were often called by their 
masters' names, as slaves are now. On 
what the heralds call the spindle side, some, 
at least, of the oldest Virginian families 
are descended from matrons who were ex- 
ported and sold for so many hogsheads of 
tobacco the head. So notorious was this, 
that it became one of the jokes of contem- 
porary playwrights, not only that men 
bankrupt in purse and character were "food 
for the Plantations " (and this before the 
settlement of New England), but also that 
any drab would suffice to wive such pitiful 
adventurers. " Never choose a wife as if 
you were going to Virginia," says Middle- 
ton in one of his comedies. The mule is 
apt to forget all but the equine side of his 
pedigree. How early the counterfeit no- 
bility of the Old Dominion became a topick 
of ridicule in the Mother Country may be 
learned from a play of Mrs. Behn's, found- 
ed on the Bebellion of Bacon : for even 
these kennels of literature may yield a fact 
or two to pay the raking. Mrs. Flirt, the 
keeper of a Virginia ordinary, calls herself 
the daughter of a baronet "undone in the 
late rebellion," — her father having in truth 
been a tailor, — and three of the Council, 
assuming to themselves an equal splendor 
of origin, are shown to have been, one M a 
broken exciseman who came over a poor 
servant," another a tinker transported for 
theft, and the third "a common pick- 
pocket often flogged at the cart's tail." 
The ancestry of South Carolina will as lit- 
tle pass muster at the Herald's Visitation, 
though I hold them to have been more rep- 
utable, inasmuch as many of them were 



honest tradesmen and artisans, in some 
measure exiles for conscience' sake, who 
would have smiled at the high-flying non- 
sense of their descendants. Some of the 
more respectable were Jews. The absurd- 
ity of supposing a population of eight mil- 
lions all sprung from gentle loins in the 
course of a century and a half is too mani- 
fest for confutation. But of what use to 
discuss the matter ? An expert genealogist 
will provide any solvent man with a genus 
et proavos to order. My Lord Burleigh 
said (and the Emperor Frederick II. before 
him), that "nobility was ancient riches," 
whence also the Spanish were wont to call 
their nobles ricos hombres, and the aris- 
tocracy of America are the descendants of 
those who first became wealthy, by what- 
ever means. Petroleum will in this wise 
be the source of much good blood among 
our posterity. The aristocracy of the 
South, such as it is, has the shallowest of 
all foundations, for it is only skin-deep, — 
the most odious of all, for, while affecting 
to despise trade, it traces its origin to a 
successful traffick in men, women, and 
children, and still draws its chief revenues 
thence. And though, as Doctor Chamber- 
layne consolingly says in his Present Sta.te 
of England, "to become a Merchant of 
Foreign Commerce, without serving any 
Apprentisage, hath been allowed no dis- 
paragement to a Gentleman born, especial- 
ly to a younger Brother," yet I conceive 
that he would hardly have made a like ex- 
ception in favour of the particular trade in 
question. Oddly enough this trade reverses 
the ordinary standards of social respecta- 
bility no less than of morals, for the retail 
and domestick is as creditable as the whole- 
sale and foreign is degrading to him who 
follows it. Are our morals, then, no better 
than mores alter all ? I do not believe that 
such aristocracy as exists at the South (for 
I hold with Marius, fortissimum quemque 
generosissimum) will be found an element 
of anything like persistent strength in war, 
— thinking the saying of Lord Bacon (whom 
one quaintly called inductionis dominus et 
Verulamii) as true as it is pithy, that "the 
more gentlemen, ever the more books of 
subsidies. " It is odd enough as an histori- 
cal precedent, that, while the fathers of 
New England were laying deep in religion, 
education, and freedom the basis of a pol- 
ity which has substantially outlasted any 
then existing, the first work of the founders 
of Virginia, as may be seen in Wingfield's 
Memorial, was conspiracy and rebellion, 
— odder yet, as showing the changes which 
are wrought by circumstance, that the first 
insurrection in South Carolina was against 
the aristocratical scheme of the Proprietary 



252 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Government. I do not find that the cutic- 
ular aristocracy of the South has added 
anything to the refinements of civilization 
except the carrying of bowie-knives and the 
chewing of tobacco, — a high-toned South- 
ern gentleman being commonly not only 
quadrumanous bat quidrmninant. 

I confess that the present letter of Mr. 
Sawin increases my doubts as to the sin- 
cerity of the convictions which he pro- 
fesses, and I am inclined to think that the 
triumph of the legitimate Government, 
sure sooner or later to take place, will find 
him and a large majority of his newly 
adopted fellow-citizens (who hold with 
Dasdalus, the primal sitter-on-the-fence, 
that medium tenere tidissimmn) original 
Union men. The criticisms towards the 
close of his letter on certain of our failings 
are worthy to be seriously perpended ; for 
he is not, as I think, without a spice of 
vulgar shrewdness. Fas est et ab hoste 
doceri : there is no reckoning without your 
host. As to the good-nature in us which 
he seems to gird at, while T would not con- 
secrate a chapel, as they have not scrupled 
to do in France, to Ndtre Dame de la 
Haine (Our Lady of Hate), yet I cannot 
forget that the corruption of good-nature 
is the generation of laxity of principle. 
Good-nature is our national characteristick ; 
and though it be, perhaps, nothing more 
than a culpable weakness or cowardice, 
when it leads us to put up tamely with 
manifold impositions and breaches of im- 
plied contracts, (as too frequently in our 
publick conveyances,) it becomes a positive 
crime, when it leads us to look unresent- 
fully on peculation, and to regard treason 
to the best Government that ever existed 
as something with which a gentleman may 
shake hands without soiling his fingers. 
I do not think the gallows-tree the most 
profitable member of our Sylva ; but, since 
it continues to be planted, I would fain 
see a Northern limb ingrafted on it, that it 
may bear some other fruit than loyal Ten- 
nesseeans. 

A relick has recently been discovered on 
the east bank of Bushy Brook in North 
Jaalam, which I conceive to be an inscrip- 
tion in Runick characters relating to the 
early expedition of the Northmen to this 
continent. I shall make fuller investiga- 
tions, and communicate the result in due 
season. 

Respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

Homer Wilbur, A. M. 

P. S. — I inclose a year's subscription 
from Deacon Tinkham. 



I hed it on my min' las' time, when I 

to write ye started, 
To tech the leadin' featurs o' my gittin' 

me convarted ; 
But, ez my letters hez to go clearn roun' 

by way o' Cuby, 
'T wun't seem no staler now than then, 

by th' time it gits w T here you be. 
You know up North, though sees an 1 

things air plenty ez you please, 
Ther' warn't nut one on 'em thet come 

jes' square with my idees : 
They all on 'em wuz too much mixed 

with Covenants o' Works, 
An' would hev answered jest ez wal for 

Afrikins an' Turks, 
Fer where 's a Christian's privilege an' 

his rewards ensuin', 
Ef 't ain' t perfessin' right an eend 

'thout nary need o' doin' ? 
I dessay they suit workin' -folks thet 

ain't noways pertie'lar, 
But nut your Southun gen'leman thet 

keeps his parpendic'lar ; 
I don't blame nary man thet casts his 

lot along o' his folks, 
But ef you cal'late to save me, 't must 

be with folks thet is folks ; 
Cov'nants o' works go 'ginst my grain, 

but down here I 've found out 
The true fus'-fem'ly A 1 plan, — here 's 

how it come about. 
When I fus' sot up with Miss S., sez she 

to me, sez she, 
1 ' Without you git religion, Sir, the 

thing can't never be ; 
Nut but wut I respeck," sez she, " your 

intellectle part, 
But you wun't noways du for me athout 

a change o' heart : 
Nothun religion works wal North, but 

it 's ez soft ez spruce, 
Compared to ourn, for keepin' sound," 

sez she, ' ' upon the goose ; 
A day's experunce 'd prove to ye, ez 

easy 'z pull a trigger, 
It takes the Southun pint o' view to 

raise ten bales a nigger ; 
You '11 fin' thet human natur, South, 

ain't wholesome more 'n skin-deep, 
An' once 't a darkle 's took with it, he 

wun't be wuth his keep." 
"How shell I git it, Ma'am?" sez I. 

"Attend the nex' camp-meetin'," 
Sez she, "an' it '11 come to ye ez cheap 

ez onbleached sheetinV' 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



253 



Wal, so I went along an' liearn most an 

impressive sarmon 
About besprinklin' Afriky with fourth- 
proof dew o' Harmon : 
He did n't put no weaknin' in, but gin it 

tu us hot, 
'Z ef he an' Satan 'd ben two bulls in 

one five-acre lot : 
I don't purtend to foller him, but give 

ye jes' the heads ; 
For pulpit ellerkence, you know, 'most 

oilers kin' o' spreads. 
Ham's seed wuz gin to us in chairge, an' 

should n't we be li'ble 
In Kingdom Come, ef we kep' back 

their priv'lege in the Bible? 
The cusses an' the promerses make one 

gret chain, an' ef 
You snake one link out here, one there, 

how much on 't ud be lei" ? 
All things wuz gin to man for 's use, his 

sarvice, an' delight ; 
An' don't the Greek an' Hebrew words 

thet mean a Man mean White ? 
Ain't it belittlin' the Good Book in all 

its proudes' featurs 
To think 't wuz wrote for black an' 

brown an' 'lasses-colored creaturs, 
Thet could n' read it, ef they would, 

nor ain't by lor allowed to, 
But ough' to take wut we think suits 

their naturs, an' be proud to ? 
Warn't it more prof table to bring your 

raw materil thru 
Where you can Avork it inta grace an' 

inta cotton, tu, 
Than sendin' missionaries out where 

fevers might defeat 'em, 
An' ef the butcher did n' call, their 

p'rishioners might eat 'em? 
An' then, agin, wut airthly use ? Nor 

't warn't our fault, in so fur 
Ez Yankee skippers would keep on a- 

totin' on 'em over. 
'T improved the whites by savin' 'em 

from ary need o' wurkin', 
An' kep' the blacks from bein' lost thru 

idleness an' shirkin' ; 
We took to 'em ez nat'ral ez a barn-owl 

doos to mice, 
An' hed our hull time on our hands to 

keep us out o' vice ; 
i It made us feel ez pop'lar ez a hen doos 

with one chicken, 
i An' fill our place in Natur's scale by 

givin' 'em a lickin' : 



For why should Csesar git his dues 

more 'n Juno, Pomp, an' Cuffy ? 
It's justifyin' Ham to spare a nigger 

when he 's stuffy. 
Where 'd their soles go tu, like to know, 

ef we should let 'em ketch 
Freeknowledgism an' Fourierism an' 

Speritoolism an' sech ? 
When Satan sets himself to work to 

raise his very bes' muss, 
He scatters roun' onscriptur'l views re- 
latin' to Ones'mus. 
You 'd ough' to seen, though, how his 

facs an' argymunce an' riggers 
Drawed tears o' real conviction from a 

lot o' pen' tent niggers ! 
It warn't like Wilbur's meetin', where 

you 're shet up in a pew, ' 
Your dickeys sorrin' off your ears, an' 

bilin' to be thru ; 
Ther' wuz a tent clost by thet hed a kag 

o' sunthin' in it, 
Where you could go, ef you wuz dry, 

an' damp ye in a minute ; 
An' ef you did dror off a spell, ther' 

wuz n't no occasion 
To lose the thread, because, ye see, he 

bellered like all Bashan. 
It 's dry work follerin' argymunce an' 

so, 'twix' this an' thet, 
I felt conviction weighin' down somehow 

inside my hat ; 
It growed an' growed like Jonah's gourd, 

a kin' o' whirlin' ketched me, 
Ontil I fin'lly clean gin out an' owned 

up thet hed' fetched me ; 
An' when nine tenths o' th' perrish 

took to tumblin' roun' an' hollerin', 
I did n' fin' no gret in th' way o' turnin' 

tu an' follerin'. 
Soon ez Miss S. see thet, sez she, 

" Thet 's wut I call wuth seein' ! 
Thet 's actin' like a reas'nable an' in- 

tellectle bein' ! " 
An' so we fin'lly made it up, concluded 

to hitch hosses, 
An' here I be 'n my ellermunt among 

creation's bosses ; 
Arter I 'd drawed sech heaps o' blanks, 

Fortin at last hez sent a prize, 
An' chose me for a shinin' light o' mis- 
sionary entaprise. 

This leads me to another pint on which 

I 've changed my plan 
0' thinkin' so 's 't I might become a 

straight-out Southun man. 



254 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Miss S. (her maiden name wuz Higgs, o' 

the fus' fem'ly here) 
On her Ma's side 's all Juggernot, on 

Pa's all Cavileer, 
An' sence I 've merried into her an' 

stept into her shoes, 
It ain't more'n nateral thet I should 

modderfy my views : 
I 've ben a-readin' in Debow ontil I 've 

fairly gut 
So 'nlightened thet I 'd full ez lives 

ha' ben a Dook ez nut ; 
An' when we 've laid ye all out stiff, an' 

Jeff hez gut his crown, 
An' comes to pick his nobles out, wurit 

this child be in town ! 
We'll hev an Age o' Chivverlry sur- 

passin' Mister Burke's, 
Where every fem'ly is fus'-best an' nary 

white man works : 
Our system 's sech, the thing '11 root ez 

easy ez a tater ; 
For while your lords in furrin parts 

ain't noways marked by natur', 
Nor sot apart from ornery folks in fea- 

turs nor in riggers, 
Ef ourn'll keep their faces washed, you'll 

know 'em from their niggers. 
Ain't sech things wuth secedin' for, an' 

gittin' red o' you 
Thet waller in your low idees, an' will 

till all is blue ? 
Fact is, we air a diffrent race, an' I, 

for one, don't see, 
Sech havin' oilers ben the case, how 

w' ever did agree. 
It 's sunthin' thet you lab' rin' -folks up 

North hed ough' to think on, 
Thet Higgses can't bemean themselves 

to rulin' by a Lincoln, — 
Thet men, (an' guv'nors, tu,) thet hez 

sech Normal names ez Pickens, 
Accustomed to no kin' o' work, 'thout 

't is to givin' lickins, 
Can't masure votes with folks thet get 

their livins from their farms, 
An' prob'ly think thet Law 's ez good ez 

hevin' coats o' arms. 
Sence I 've ben here, I 've hired a chap 

to look about for me 
To git me a transplantable an' thrifty 

fem'ly-tree, 
An' he tells me the Sawins is ez much 

o' Normal blood 
Ez Pickens an' the rest on 'em, an' older 

'n Noah's flood. 



Your Normal schools wun't turn ye 

into Normals, for it 's clear, 
Ef eddykatin' done the thing, they 'd 

be some skurcer here. 
Pickenses, Boggses, Pettuses, Magof- 

fins, Letchers, Polks, — 
Where can you scare up names like 

them among your mudsill folks ? 
Ther 's nothin' to compare with em', 

you 'd fin', ef you should glance, 
Among the tip-top femerlies in Englan', 

nor in France : 
I 've hearn from 'sponsible men whose 

word wuz full ez good 's their note, 
Men thet can run their face for drinks, 

an' keep a Sunday coat, 
That they wuz all on 'em come down, 

an' come down pooty fur, 
From folks thet, 'thout their crowns wuz 

on, ou' doors would n' never stir, 
Nor thet ther' warn't a Southun man 

but wut wuz primy fashy 
0' the bes' blood in Europe, yis, an' 

Afriky an' Ashy : 
Sech bein' the case, is 't likely we should 

bend like cotton wickin', 
Or set down under anythin' so low-lived 

ez a lickin' ? 
More 'n this, — hain't we the literatoor 

an science, tu, by gorry ? 
Hain't we them intellectle twins, them 

giants, Simms an' Maury, 
Each with full twice the ushle brains, 

like nothin' thet I know, 
'thout 't wuz a double-headed calf I see 

once to a show ? 

For all thet, I warn't jest at fust in favor 

o' secedin' ; 
I wuz for layin' low a spell to find out 

where 't wuz leadin', 
For hevin' South-Carliny try her hand 

at sepritnatiqnin', 
She takin' resks an' findin' funds, an' 

we co-operationin', — 
I mean a kin' o' hangin' roun' an' set-. 

tin' on the fence, 
Till Pro v' dunce pinted how to jump an' 

save the most expense ; 
I recollected thet 'ere mine o' lead to 

Shiraz Centre 
Thet bust up Jabez Pettibone, an' didn't 

want to ventur' 
'Fore I wuz sartin wut come out ud pay 

for wut went in, 
For swappin' silver off for lead ain't the 

sure way to win ; 



THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 



255 



(An', fact, it doos look now ez though — 

but folks must live an' larn — 
We should git lead, an' more 'n we 

want, out o' the Old Consarn ; 
But when 1 see a man so wise an' honest 

ez Buchanan 
A-lettin' us hev all the forts an' all the 

arms an' cannon, 
Admittin' we wuz nat'lly right an' you 

wuz nat'lly wrong, 
Coz you wuz lab'rin' -folks an' we wuz 

wut they call bong-tong, 
An' coz there warn't no fight in ye 

more 'n in a mashed potater, 
While two o' tis can't skurcely meet but 

wut we fight by natur', 
An' th' ain't a bar-room here would pay 

for open in' on 't a night, 
Without it giv the priverlege o' bein' 

shot at sight, 
Which proves we 're Natur' s noblemen, 

with whom it don't surprise 
The British aristoxy should feel boun' 

to sympathize, — 
Seein' all this, an' seem', tu, the thing 

wuz strikin' roots 
While Uncle Sam sot still in hopes thet 

some one 'd bring his boots, 
I thought th' ole Union's hoops wuz off, 

an' let myself be sucked in 
To rise a peg an' jine the crowd thet 

went for recons true tin', — 
Thet is to hev the pardnership under 

th' ole name continner 
Jest ez it wuz, we drorrin' pay, you 

findin' bone an' sinner, — 
On'y to put it in the bond, an' enter 't 

in the journals, 
Thet you 're the nat'ral rank an' file, 

an' we the nat'ral kurnels. 

Now this I thought a fees'ble plan, thet 

'ud work smooth ez grease, 
Suitin' the Nineteenth Century an' 

Upper Ten idees, 
An' there I meant to stick, an' so did 

most o' th' leaders, tu, 
Coz we all thought the chance wuz good 

o ? puttin' on it thru ; 
But Jeff he hit upon a way o' helpin' on 

us forrard 
By bein' unannermous, — a trick you 

ain't quite up to, Norrard. 
A Baldin hain't no more 'f a chance 

with them new apple-eorers 
Than folks's oppersition views aginst 

the Ringtail Roarers : 



They '11 take 'em out on him 'bout east, 

— one canter on a rail 
Makes a man feel unannermous ez Jonah 

in the whale ; 
Or ef he's a slow-moulded cuss thet 

can't seem quite t' 'gree, 
He gits the noose by tellergraph upon 

the nighes' tree : 
Their mission-work with Afrikins hez 

put 'em up, thet 's sartin, 
To all the mos' across-lot ways o' 

preachin' an' convartin' ; 
I '11 bet my hat th' ain't nary priest, 

nor all on em together, 
Thet cairs conviction to the min' like 

Reveren' Taranfeather ; 
Why, he sot up with me one night, an' 

labored to sech purpose, , 
Thet (ez an owl by daylight 'mongst a 

flock o' teazin' chirpers 
Sees clearer 'n mud the wickedness o* 

eatin' little birds) 
I see my error an' agreed to shen it 

arterwurds ; 
An' I should say, (to jedge our folks by 

facs in my possession,) 
Thet three 's Unannermous where one's 

a 'Riginal Secession ; 
So it 's a thing you fellers North may 

safely bet your chink on, 
Thet we 're all water-proofed agin th' 

usurpin' reign o' Lincoln. 

Jeff 's some. He 's gut another plan 

thet hez pertie'lar merits, 
In givin' things a cheerfle look an' stifF- 

nin' loose-hung sperits ; 
For while your million papers, wut with 

lyin' an' discussin', 
Keep folks's tempers all on eend a-fum* 

in' an a-fussin', 
A-wondrin' this an' guessin' thet, an' 

dreadin' every night 
The breechin' o' the Univarse '11 break 

afore it 's light, 
Our papers don't purtend to print on'y 

wut Guv'ment choose, 
An' thet insures us all to git the very 

best o' noose : 
Jeff hez it of all sorts an' kines, an' 

sarves it out ez wanted, 
So 's 't every man gits wut he likes an' 

nobody ain't scanted ; 
Sometimes it 's vict'ries (they 're 'bout 

all ther' is that 's cheap down here,) 
Sometimes it 's France an' England on 

the jump to interfere. 



256 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Fact is, the less the people know o' wilt 

ther' is a-doin', 
The hendier 't is for Guv'ment, sence it 

henders trouble brewin' ; 
An' nooze is like a shinplaster, — it \s 

good, ef you believe it, 
Or, wut 's all same, the other man thet 's 

goin' to receive it : ' 
Ef you 've a son in th' army, wy, it 's 

comfortin' to hear 
He '11 hev no gretter resk to run than 

seein' th' in'my's rear, 
Coz, ef an F. F. looks at 'em, they 

oilers break an' run, 
Or wilt right down ez debtors will thet 

stumble on a dun, 
(An' this, ef an'thin', proves the wuth o' 

proper fem'ly pride, 
Fer sech mean shucks ez creditors are 

all on Liu coin's side) ; 
Ef I hev scrip thet wun't go off no 

more 'n a Belgin rifle, 
An' read thet it 's at par on 'Change, it 

makes me feel deli' fie ; 
It 's cheerin', tu, where every man mus' 

fortify his bed, 
To hear thet Freedom 's the one thing 

our darkies mos'ly dread, 
An' thet experunce, time'n' agin, to 

Dixie's Land hez shown 
Ther' \s nothin' like a powder-cask fer a 

stiddy corner-stone ; 
Ain't it ez good ez nuts, when salt is 

sellin' by the ounce 
For its own weight in Treash'ry-bons, 

(ef bought in small amounts,) 
When even whiskey's gittin' skurce 

an' sugar can't be found, 
To know thet all the ellerments o' lux- 
ury abound ? 
An' don't it glorify sal' -pork, to come to 

understand 
It 's wut the Eichmon' editors call fat- 
ness o' the land i . 
Nex' thing to knowin' you 're well off 

is nut to know when y' ain't ; 
An' ef Jeff says all 's goin' wal, who '11 

ventur' t' say it ain't ? 

This cairn the Constitooshun roun' ez 

Jeff doos in his hat 
Is hendier a dreffle sight, an' comes 

more kin' o' pat. 
I tell ye wut, my jedgment is you 're 

pooty sure to fail, 
Ez long 'z the head keeps turnin' back 

for counsel to the tail : 



Th' advantiges of our consarn for bein 

prompt air gret, 
While, 'long o' Congress, you can't 

strike, 'f you git an iron het ; 
They bother roun' with argooin', an' va- 

r'ous sorts o' foolin', 
To make sure ef it 's leg'lly het, an' all 

the while it 's coolin', 
So 's 't when you come to strike, it ain't 

no gret to wish ye j'y on, 
An' hurts the hammer 'z much or more 

ez wut it doos the iron, 
Jeff don't allow no jawin'-sprees for three 

months at a stretch, 
Knowin' the ears long speeches suits air 

mostly made to metch ; 
He jes' ropes in your tonguey chaps an' 

reg'lar ten-inch bores 
An' lets 'em play at Congress, ef they '11 

du it with closed doors ; 
So they ain't no more bothersome than 

ef we' d took an' sunk 'em, 
An' yit enj'y th' exclusive right to one 

another's Buncombe 
'thout doin' nobody no hurt, an' 'thout 

its costin' nothin,' 
Their pay bein' jes' Confedrit funds, 

they findin' keep an' clothin' ; 
They taste the sweets o' public life, an* 

plan their little jobs, 
An' suck the Treash'ry, (no gret harm, 

for it's ez dry ez cobs.) 
An' go thru all the motions jest ez safe 

ez in a prison, 
An' hev their business to themselves, 

while Buregard hez hisn : 
Ez long 'z he gives the Hessians fits, 

committees can't make bother 
'bout whether 't 's done the legle way or 

whether 't 's done the t'other. 
An' I tell you you 've gut to larn thet 

War ain't one long teeter 
Betwixt I toan' to an' ' T wun't du, de- 

batin' like a skeetur 
Afore he lights, — all is, to give the 

other side a millin', 
An' arter thet 's done, th' ain't no resk 

but wut the lor '11 be willin' ; 
No metter wut the guv'ment is, ez nigh 

ez I can hit it, 
A lickin' 's constitooshunal, pervidin' 

We don't git it. 
Jeff don't stan' dilly-dallyin', afore he 

takes a fort, 
(With no one in,) to git the leave o' the 

nex' Soopreme Court, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



257 



$"or don't want forty-'leven weeks o' 

jawin' an' exponndin', 
To prove a nigger hez a right to save 

him, ef he 's drowndin' ; 
Whereas ole Abram 'd sink afore he 'd 

let a darkie boost him, 
Ef Taney should n't come along an' 

hedn't interdooced him. 
It ain't your twenty millions thet'll 

ever block Jeffs game, 
But one Man thet wun't let 'em jog jest 

ez he 's takin' aim : 
Your numbers they may strengthen ye 

or weaken ye, ez 't heppens 
They 're willin' to be helpin' hands or 

wuss'n-nothin' cap'ns. 

I 've chose my side, an' 't ain't no odds 

ef I wuz drawed with magnets, 
Or ef I thought it prudenter to jine the 

nighes' bagnets ; 
I 've made my ch'ice, an' ciphered out, 

from all I see an' heard, 
Th' ole Constitooshun never 'd git her 

decks for action cleared, 
Long 'z you elect for Congressmen poor 

shotes thet want to go 
Coz they can't seem to git their grub no 

otherways than so, 
An' let your bes' men stay to home coz 

they wun't show ez talkers, 
Nor can't be hired to fool ye an' sof - 

soap ye at a caucus, — 
Long 'z ye set by Botashun more 'n ye 

do by folks's merits, 
Ez though experunce thriv by change o' 

sile, like corn an' kerrits, — 
Long 'z you allow a critter's "claims" 

coz, spite o' shoves an' tippins, 
He 's kep' his private pan jest where 't 

would ketch mos' public drippins', — 
Long 'z A. '11 turn tu an' grin' B. 's exe, 

ef B. '11 help him grin' hisn, 
(An' thet 's the main idee by which your 

leadin' men hev risen,) — 
Long 'z you let ary exe be groun','less 

't is to cut the weasan' 
0' sneaks thet dunno till they 're told 

wut is an' wut ain't Treason, — 
Long'z ye give out commissions to a lot 

o' peddlin' drones 
Thet trade in whiskey with their men 

an' skin 'em to their bones, — 
Long'z ye sift out "safe" canderdates 

thet no one ain't afeard on 
Coz they 're so thund'rin' eminent for 

bein' never heard on, 

17 



An' hain't no record, ez it 's called, for 

folks to pick a hole in, 
Ez ef it hurt a man to hev a body with 

a soul in, 
An' it wuz ostentashun to be showin' 

on 't about, 
When half his feller-citizens contrive to 

du without, — 
Long 'z you suppose your votes can turn 

biled kebbage into brain, 
An' ary man thet 's pop'lar 's fit to drive 

a lightnin'- train, — 
Long 'z you believe democracy means 

I'm ez good ez you be, 
An' that a feller from the ranks can't be 

a knave or booby, — 
Long 'z Congress seems purvided, like 

yer street-cars an' yer 'busses, 
With oilers room for jes' one more o' 

your spiled-in-bakin' cusses, 
Dough 'thout the emptins of a soul, an' 

yit with means about 'em 
(Like essence-peddlers *) thet '11 make 

folks long to be without 'em, 
Jest heavy 'nough to turn a scale thet 's 

doubtfle the wrong way, 
An' make their nat'ral arsenal o' bein' 

nasty pay, — 
Long 'z them things last, (an' / don't 

see no gret signs of improvin',) 
I sha' n't up stakes, not hardly yit, nor 't 

would n't pay for movin' ; 
For, 'fore you lick us, it '11 be the 

long'st day ever you see. 
Yourn, (ez I 'xpec' to be nex' spring,) 
B., Markiss o' Big Boosy. 



No. IV. 

A MESSAGE OF JEFF DAVIS IN 
SECRET SESSION. 

Conjecturally reported by H. Big low. 

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam, 10th March, 1862. 
Gentlemen, — My leisure has been so 
entirely occupied with the hitherto fruit- 
less' endeavour to decypher the Runick 
inscription whose fortunate discovery I 
mentioned in my last communication, that 
J have not found time to discuss, as I had 

* A rustic euphemism for the American va- 
riety of the Mephitis. H. W. 



258 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



intended, the great problem of what we | 
are to do with slavery, — a topick on ' 
which the publick mind in this place is at 
present more than ever agitated. What 
my wishes and hopes are I need not say, 
but for safe conclusions I do not conceive 
that we are yet in possession of facts 
enough on which to bottom them with 
certainty. Acknowledging the hand of 
Providence, as I do, in all events, I am 
sometimes inclined to think that they are 
wiser than we, and am willing to wait till 
we have made this continent once more a 
place where freemen can live in security 
and honour, before assuming any further 
responsibility. This is the view taken by 
my neighbour Habakkuk Sloansure, Esq., 
the president of our bank, whose opinion 
in the practical affairs of life has great 
weight with me, as I have generally found 
it to be justified by the event, and whose 
counsel, had I followed it, would have 
saved me from an unfortunate investment 
of a considerable part of the painful 
economies of half a century in the North- 
west-Passage Tunnel. After a somewhat 
animated discussion with this gentleman, 
a few days since, I expanded, on the audi 
alteram partem principle, something which 
he happened to say by way of illustration, 
into the following fable. 

FESTINA LENTE. 

Once on a time there was a pool 
Fringed all about with flag-leaves cool 
And spotted with cow-lilies garish, 
Of frogs and pouts the ancient parish. 
Alders the creaking redwings sink on, 
Tussocks that house blithe Bob o' Lincoln 
Hedged round the unassailed seclusion, 
"Where muskrats piled their cells Carthusian ; 
And many a moss-embroidered log, 
The watering-place of summer frog, 
Slept and decayed with patient skill, 
As watering-places sometimes will. 

Now in this Abbey of Theleme, 
Which realized the fairest dream 
That ever dozing bull-frog had, 
Sunned on a half-sunk lily-pad, 
There rose a party with a mission 
To mend the polliwogs' condition, 
Who notified the selectmen 
To call a meeting there and then. 
•"Some kind of steps," they said, "are needed ; 
They don't come on so fast as Ave did : 
Let 's dock their tails ; if that don't make 'em 
Frogs by brevet, the Old One take 'em ! 
That boy, that came the other day 
To dig some flag-root down this way, 
His jack-knife left, and 't is a sign 
That Heaven approves of our design : 
'T were wicked not to urge the step on, 
When Providence has sent the weapon." 

Old croakers, deacons of the mire, 
That led the deep batrachian choir, 



Uk ! Uk ! Caronk i with bass that might 
Have left Lablache's out of sight, 
Shook nobby heads, and said, " No go ! 
You 'd better let 'em try to grow : 
Old Doctor Time is slow, but still 
He does know how to make a pilL " 

But vain was all their hoarsest bass, 
Their old experience out of place, 
And spite of croaking and entreating, 
The vote was carried in marsh-meeting. 

" Lord knows," protest the polliwogs, 

" We 're anxious to be grown-up frogs ; 

But do not undertake the work 

Of Nature till she prove a shirk ; 

'T is not by jumps that she advances, 

But wins her way by circumstances : 

Pray, wait awhile, until you know 

We 're so contrived as not to grow ; 

Let Nature take her own direction, 

And she '11 absorb our imperfection ; 

You might n't like 'em to appear with, 

But we must have the things to steer with." 

"No," piped the party of reform, 
" All great results are ta'en by storm ; 
Fate holds her best gifts till we show 
We 've strength to make her let them go ; 
The Providence that works in history, 
And seems to some folks such a mystery, 
Does not creep slowly on incog., 
But moves by jumps, a mighty frog ; 
No more reject the Age's chrism, 
Your queues are an anachronism ; 
No more the Future's promise mock, 
But lay your tails upon the block, 
Thankful that we the means have voted 
To have you thus to frogs promoted." 

The thing was done, the tails were cropped, 

And home each philotadpole hopped, 

In faith rewarded to exult, 

And wait the beautiful result. 

Too soon it came ; our pool, so long 

The theme of patriot bull-frog's song, 

Next day was reeking, fit to smother, 

With heads and tails that missed each other, — 

Here snoutless tails, there tailless snouts ; 

The only gainers were the pouts. 



From lower to the higher next, 
Not to the top, is Nature's text ; 
And embryo Good, to reach full stature, 
Absorbs the Evil in its nature. 

I think that nothing will ever give per- 
manent peace and security to this conti- 
nent but the extirpation of Slavery there- 
from, and that the occasion is nigh; but I 
would do nothing hastily or vindictively, 
nor presume to jog the elbow of Provi- 
dence. No desperate measures for me till 
we are sure that all others are hopeless, — 
fleeter e si nequeo superos, Acheronta mo- 
vebo. To make Emancipation a reform 
instead of a revolution is worth a little 
patience, that we may have the Border 
States first, and then the non-slaveholders 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



259 



of the Cotton States, with us in princi- 
ple, — a consummation that seems to be 
nearer than many imagine. Fiat justitia, 
mat ccelum, is not to be taken in a literal 
sense by statesmen, whose problem is to 
get justice done with as little jar as possi- 
ble to existing order, which has at least so 
much of heaven in it that it is not chaos. 
Our first duty toward our enslaved brother 
is to educate him, whether he be white or 
black. The first need of the free black is 
to elevate himself according to the stand- 
ard of this material generation. So soon 
as the Ethiopian goes in his chariot, he 
will find not only Apostles, but Chief 
Priests and Scribes and Pharisees willing 
to ride with him. 

Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se 
Quani quod ridiculos homines facit. 

I rejoice in the President's late Message, 
which at last proclaims the Government 
on the side of freedom, justice, and sound 
policy. 

As I write, comes the news of our disas- 
ter at Hampton Roads. I do not under- 
stand the supineness which, after fair 
warning, leaves wood to an unequal con- 
flict with iron. It is not enough merely 
to have the right on our side, if we stick 
to the old flint-lock of tradition. I have 
observed in my parochial experience {hand 
ignarus mali) that the Devil is prompt to 
adopt the latest inventions of destructive 
warfare, and may thus take even such a 
three-decker as Bishop Butler at an ad- 
vantage. It is curious, that, as gunpowder 
made armour useless on shore, so armour 
is having its revenge by baffling its old 
enemy at sea, — and that, while gunpow- 
der robbed land warfare of nearly all its 
picturesqueness to give even greater state- 
liness and sublimity to a sea-fight, armour 
bids fair to degrade the latter into a 
squabble between two iron-shelled turtles. 

Yours, with esteem and respect, 

Homer Wilbur, A. M. 

P. S. — I had wellnigh forgotten to say 
that the object of this letter is to enclose 
a communication from the gifted pen of 
Mr. Bigiow. 



I sent you a messige, my friens, t' other 

day, 
To tell you I 'd nothin' pertickler to 

say: 
't wuz the day our new nation gut kin' 

o' stillborn, 



So 't wuz my pleasant dooty t' acknowl- 
edge the corn, 
An' I see clearly then, ef I did n't be- 
fore, 
Thet the augur in inauguration means 

bore. 
I need n't tell you thet my messige wuz 

written 
To diffuse correc' notions in France an' 

Gret Britten, 
An' agin to impress on the poppylar 

mind 
The comfort an' wisdom o' goin' it 

blind, — 
To say thet I did n't abate not a hooter 
0' my faith in a happy an' glorious 

futur', 
Ez rich in each soshle an' p'litickle 

blessin' 
Ez them thet we now hed the joy o' 

possessing 
With a people united, an' longin' to 

die 
For wut we call their country, without 

askin' why, 
An' all the gret things we concluded to 

slope for 
Ez much within reach now ez ever — to 

hope for. 
We 've gut all the ellerments, this very 

hour, 
Thet make up a fus' -class, self-go vern- 

in' power: 
W r e 've a war, an' a debt, an' a flag ; an' 

ef this 
Ain't to be inderpendunt, why, wut on 

airth is ? 
An' nothin' now henders our takin' our 

station 
Ez the freest, enlightenedest, civerlized 

nation, 
Built up on our bran' -new poli tickle 

thesis 
Thet a Gov'ment's fust right is to tum- 
ble to pieces, — 
I say nothin' henders our takin' our 

place 
Ez the very fus' -best o' the whole human 

race, 
A spittin' tobacker ez proud ez you 

please 
On Victory's bes' carpets, or loafin' at 

ease 
In the Tool'ries front-parlor, discussin' 

affairs 
With our heels on the backs o' Napo- 
leon's new chairs, 



260 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



An* princes a-mixin' our cocktails an' 

slings, — 
Excep', wal, excep' jest a very few 

things, 
Secli ez navies an' armies an' wherewith 

to pay, 
An' gittin' our sogers to run t' other 

way, 
An' not be too over-pertickler in tryin' 
To hunt up the very las' ditches to die 

in. 

Ther' are critters so base thet they want 

it explained 
Jes' wut is the totle amount thet we 've 

gained, 
Ez ef we could maysure stupendous 

events 
By the low Yankee stan'ard o' dollars 

an' cents : 
They seem to forgit, thet, sence last year 

revolved, 
We 've succeeded in gittin' seceshed an' 

dissolved, 
An' thet no one can't hope to git thru 

dissolootion 
'thout some kin' o' strain on the best 

Constitootion. 
Who asks for a prospec' more flettrin' 

an' bright, 
When from here clean to Texas it 's all 

one free light ? 
Hain't we rescued from Seward the gret 

leadin' featurs 
Thet makes it wuth while to be reasonin' 

creaturs ? 
Hain't we saved Habus Coppers, im- 
proved it in fact, 
By suspendin' the Unionists 'stid o' the 

Act? 
Ain't the laws free to all ? Where on 

airth else d' ye see 
Every freeman improvin' his own rope 

an' tree ? 
Ain't our piety sech (in our speeches an' 

messiges) 
Ez t' astonish ourselves in the bes' -com- 
posed pessiges, 
An' to make folks thet knowed us in 

th' ole state o' things 
Think convarsion ez easy ez drinkin' 

gin -slings ? 

It 's ne'ssary to take a good confident 

tone 
With the public ; but here, jest amongst 

us, 1 own 



Things look blacker 'n thunder. Ther' 

's no use deny in' 
We 're clean out o' money, an' 'most out 

o' lyin' ; 
Two things a young nation can't mennage 

without, 
Ef she wants to look wal at her fust 

com in' out ; 
For the fust supplies phy sickle strength, 

while the second 
Gives a morril edvantage thet 's hard to 

be reckoned : 
For this latter I 'm willin' to du wut I 

can ; 
For the former you '11 hev to consult on 

a plan, — 
Though our fust want (an' this pint I 

want your best views on) 
Is plausible paper to print I. 0. U.s on. 
Some gennlemen think it would cure all 

our cankers 
In the way o' finance, ef w 7 e jes' hanged 

the bankers ; 
An' I own the proposle 'ud square with 

my views, 
Ef their lives wuz n't all thet we 'd left 

'em to lose. 
Some say thet more confidence might be 

inspired, 
Ef we voted our cities an' towns to be 

fired, — 
A plan thet 'ud suttenly tax our endur- 
ance, 
Coz 't would be our own bills we should 

git for th' insurance ; 
But cinders, no metter how sacred we 

think 'em, 
Might n't strike furrin minds ez good 

sources of income, 
Nor the people, perhaps, would n't like 

the eclaw 
0' bein' all turned into paytriots by 

law. 
Some want we should buy all the cotton 

an' burn it, 
On a pledge, when we 've gut thru the 

war, to return it, — 
Then to take the proceeds an' hold them 

ez security 
For an issue o' bonds to be met at ma- 
turity 
With an issue o' notes to be paid in hard 

cash 
On the fus' Monday follerin' the 'tarnal 

Allsmash : 
This hez a safe air, an', once hold o' the 

gold, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



261 



'ud leave our vile plunderers out in the 

cold, 
An' might temp' John Bull, ef it warn't 

for the dip he 
Once gut from the banks o' my own 

Mississippi. 
Some think we could make, by arrangin' 

the riggers, 
A hendy home-currency out of our 

niggers ; 
But it wun't du to lean much on ary 

sech staff, 
For they 're gittin' tu current a'ready, 

by half. 

One gennleman says, ef we lef our loan 

out 
"Where Floyd could git hold on 't he 'd 

take it, no doubt ; 
But 't ain't jes' the takin, though 't hez 

a good look, 
We mus' git sunthin' out on it arter it 's 

took, 
An' we need now more 'n ever, with 

sorrer I own, 
Thet some one another should let us 

a loan, 
Sence a soger wun't fight, on'y jes' while 

he draws his 
Pay down on the nail, for the best of all 

causes, 
'thout askin' to know wut the quarrel 's 

about, — 
An' once come to thet, why, our game is 

played out. 
It 's ez true ez though I should n't never 

hev said it, 
Thet a hitch hez took place in our system 

o' credit ; 
I swear it 's all right in my speeches an' 

messiges, 
But ther' 's idees afloat, ez ther' is about 

sessiges : 
Folks wun't take a bond ez a basis to 

trade on, 
Without nosin' round to find out wut 

it 's made on, 
An' the thought more an' more thru the 

public min' crosses 
Thet our Treshry hez gut 'mos' too many 

dead hosses. 
Wut 's called credit, you see, is some like 

a balloon, 
Thet looks while it 's up 'most ez ham- 
some 'z a moon, 
But once git a leak in 't an' wut looked 

so grand 



Caves righ' down in a jiffy ez flat ez your 

hand. 
Now the world is a dreffle mean place, 

for our sins, 
Where ther' ollus is critters about with 

long pins 
A-prickin' the bubbles we ' ve blowed with 

sech care, 
An' provin' ther' 's nothin' inside but 

bad air : 
They 're all Stuart Millses, poor- white 

trash, an' sneaks, 
Without no more chivverlry 'n Choctaws 

or Creeks, 
Who think a real gennleman's promise 

to pay 
Is meant to be took in trade's ornery 

way : 
Them fellers an' I could n' never agree ; 
They 're the nateral foes o' the Southun 

Idee ; 
I 'd gladly take all of our other resks on 

me 
To be red o' this low-lived politikle 

'con'my ! 

Now a dastardly notion is gittin' about 
Thet our bladder is bust an' the gas 

oozin' out, 
An' onless we can mennage in some way 

to stop it, 
Why, the thing 's a gone coon, an' we 

might ez wal drop it. 
Brag works wal at fust, but it ain't jes' 

the thing 
For a stiddy inves'ment the shiners to 

bring, 
An' votin' we 're prosp'rous a hundred 

times over 
Wun't change bein' starved into livin' 

on clover. 
Manassas done sunthin' tow'rds drawin' 

the wool 
O'er the green, antislavery eyes o' John 

Bull : 
Oh, warn't it a godsend, jes' when sech 

tight fixes 
Wuz crowdin' us mourners, to throw 

double-sixes ! 
I wuz tempted to think, an' it wuz n't 

no wonder, 
Ther' wuz reelly a Providence, — over or 

under, — 
When, all packed for Nashville, I fust 

ascertained 
From the papers up North wut a victory 

we 'd gained. 



262 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



't wuz the time for diffusin' correc' views 

abroad 
Of our union an' strength an' relyin' on 

God; 
An', fact, when I 'd gut thru my fust 

big surprise, 
I much ez half b'lieved in my own tall- 
est lies, 
An' conveyed the idee thet the whole 

Southun popperlace 
"Wuz Spartans all on the keen jump for 

Thermopperlies, 
Thet set on the Lincolnites' bombs till 

they bust, 
An' fight for the priv'lege o' dyin' the 

fust ; 
But Roanoke, Bufort, Millspring, an' the 

rest 
Of our recent starn-foremost successes 

out West, 
Hain't left us a foot for our swellin' to 

stand on, — 
We 've showed too much o' wut Buregard 

calls abandon, 
For all our Thermopperlies (an' it's a 

marcy 
"We hain't hed no more) hev ben clean 

vicy-varsy, 
An' wut Spartans wuz lef when the bat- 
tle wuz done 
"Wuz them thet wuz too unambitious to 

run. 

Oh, ef we hed on'y jes' gut Reecognition, 

Things now would ha' ben in a different 
position ! 

You 'd ha' hed all you wanted : the 
paper blockade 

Smashed up into toothpicks ; unlim- 
ited trade 

In the one thing thet 's needfle, till nig- 
gers, I swow, 

Hed ben thicker 'n provisional shin- 
plasters now^, 

Quinine by the ton 'ginst the shakes 
when they seize ye ; 

Nice paper to coin into C. S. A. specie ; 

The voice of the driver 'd be heerd in our 
land, 

An' the univarse scringe, ef we lifted our 
hand : 

Would n't thet be some like a fulfillin' the 
prophecies, 

With all the fus' fern' lies in all the fust 
offices ? 

't wuz a beautiful dream, an' all sorrer 
is idle, — 



But ef Lincoln would ha' hanged Mason 

an' Slidell ! 
For would n't the Yankees hev found 

they 'd ketched Tartars, 
Ef they 'd raised two sech critters as 

them into martyrs ? 
Mason wuz F. F. V., though a cheap 

card to win on, 
But t' other was jes' New York trash to 

begin on ; 
They ain't o' no good in European pel- 

lices, 
But think wut a help they 'd ha' ben on 

their gallowses ! 
They 'd ha' felt they wuz truly fulfillin* 

their mission, 
An', oh, how dog-cheap we 'd ha' gut 

Reecognition ! 

But somehow another, wutever we 've 

tried, 
Though the the'ry 's fust-rate, the facs 

wun't coincide : 
Facs are contrary 'z mules, an' ez hard 

in the mouth, 
An' they alius hev showed a mean spite 

to the South. 
Sech bein' the case, we hed best look 

about 
For some kin' o' way to slip our necks 

out : 
Le' 's vote our las' dollar, ef one can be 

found, 
(An', at any rate, votin' it hez a good 

sound,) — 
Le' 's swear thet to arms all our people 

is flyin', 
(The critters can't read, an' wun't know 

how we 're lyin',) — 
Thet Toombs is advancin' to sack Cin- 

cinnater, 
With a rovin' commission to pillage an' 

slahter, — 
Thet we 've throwed to the winds all re- 
gard for wut 's lawfle, 
An' gone in for sunthin' promiscu'sly 

awfle. 
Ye see, hitherto, it 's our own knaves 

an' fools 
Thet we 've used,, (those for whetstones, 

an' t' others ez tools,) 
An' now our las' chance is in puttin' to 

test 
The same kin' o' cattle up North an' out 

West, — 
Your Belmonts, Vallandighams, Woods- 

es, an' sech, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



263 



Poor shotes tliet ye could n't persuade 
us to tech, 

Not in ornery times, though we 're will- 
in' to feed 'em 

"With a nod now an' then, when we hap- 
pen to need 'em ; 

Why, for my part, I 'd ruther shake 
hands with a nigger 

Than with cusses that load an' don't 
darst dror a trigger ; 

They 're the wust wooden nutmegs the 
Yankees produce, 

Shaky every wheres else, an' jes' sound 
on the goose ; 

They ain't wuth a cuss, an' I set noth- 
in' by 'em, 

But we 're in sech a fix thet I s'pose we 
mus' try 'em. 

I — But, Gennlemen, here 's a de- 
spatch jes' come in 

Which shows thet the tide 's begun turn- 
in' agin', — 

Gret Cornfedrit success ! C'lumbus 
eevacooated ! 

I mus' run down an' hev the thing prop- 
erly stated, 

An' showwut a triumph it is, an' how 
lucky 

To fin'lly git red o' thet cussed Ken- 
tucky, — 

An' how, sence Fort Donelson, winnin' 
the day 

Consists in triumphantly gittin' away. 



No. V. 



SPEECH OF HONOURABLE PRE- 
SERVED DOE IN SECRET CAU- 
CUS. 

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam, 12th April, 1862. 
Gentlemen, — As I cannot but hope 
that the ultimate, if not speedy, success of 
the national arms is now sufficiently ascer- 
tained, sure as I am of the righteousness 
of our cause and its consequent claim on 
the blessing of God, (for I would not show 
a faith inferior to that of the Pagan histo- 
rian with his Facile evenit quod Dis cordi 
est, ) it seems to me a suitable occasion to 
mthdraw our minds a moment from the 
confusing din of battle to objects of peace- 
ful and permanent interest. Let us not 



neglect the monuments of preterite his- 
tory because what shall be history is so 
diligently making under our eyes. Cras 
ingens iterabimus cequor ; to-morrow will 
be time enough for that stormy sea ; to- 
day let me engage the attention of your 
readers with the Runick inscription to 
whose fortunate discovery I have hereto- 
fore alluded. Well may we say with the 
poet, Multa renascuntur qucejam cecidere. 
And I would premise, that, although I 
can no longer resist the evidence of my 
own senses from the stone before me to 
the ante-Columbian discovery of this con- 
tinent by the Northmen, gens inclytissima, 
as they are called in a Palermitan inscrip- 
tion, written fortunately in a less debata- 
ble character than that which I am about 
to decipher, yet I would by no means be 
understood as wishing to vilipend the 
merits of the great Genoese, whose name 
will never be forgotten so long as the in- 
spiring strains of "Hail Columbia" shall 
continue to be heard. Though he must be 
stripped also of whatever praise may be- 
long to the experiment of the egg, which I 
find proverbially attributed by Castilian 
authors to a certain Juanito or Jack, 
(perhaps an offshoot of our giant-killing 
mythus,) his name will still remain one of 
the most illustrious of modern times. Bu? 
the impartial historian owes a duty like 
wise to obscure merit, and my solicituc ., 
to render a tardy justice is perhaps quick- 
ened by my having known those who, had 
their own field of labour been less secluded, 
might have found a readier acceptance 
with the reading publick. I could give an 
example, but I forbear : forsitan nostris 
ex ossibus oritur ultor. 

Touching Runick inscriptions, I find that 
they may be classed under three general 
heads : 1°. Those which are understood 
by the Danish Royal Society of Northern 
Antiquaries, and Professor Rafn, their 
Secretary ; 2°. Those which are compre- 
hensible only by Mr. Rafn ; and 3°. Those 
which neither the Society, Mr. Rafn, nor 
anybody else can be said in any definite 
sense to understand, and which accord- 
ingly offer peculiar temptations to enucle- 
ating sagacity. These last are naturally 
deemed the most valuable by intelligent 
antiquaries, and to this class the stone 
now in my possession fortunately belongs. 
Such give a picturesque variety to ancient 
events, because susceptible oftentimes of 
as many interpretations as there are indi- 
vidual archaeologists ; and since facts are 
only the pulp in which the Idea or event- 
seed is softly imbedded till it ifpen, it is 
of little consequence what colour or fla- 
vour we attribute to them, provided it be 



264 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



agreeable. Availing myself of the oblig- 
ing assistance of Mr. Arphaxad Bowers, 
an ingenious photographick artist, whose 
house-on-wheels has now stood for three 
years on our Meeting-House Green, with 
the somewhat contradictory inscription, — 
(l our motto is onward," — I have sent 
accurate copies of my treasure to many 
learned men and societies, both native and 
European. I may hereafter communicate 
their different and (me judice) equally 
erroneous solutions. I solicit also, Messrs. 
Editors, your own acceptance of the copy 
herewith enclosed. I need only premise 
further, that the stone itself is a goodly 
block of metamorphick sandstone, and 
that the Runes resemble very nearly the 
ornithichnites or fossil bird-tracks of Dr. 
Hitchcock, but with less regularity or 
apparent design than is displayed by those 
remarkable geological monuments. These 
are rather the non bene junctarum dis- 
cordia semina rerum. Resolved to leave 
no door open to cavil, I first of all at- 
tempted the elucidation of this remarka- 
ble example of lithick literature by the 
ordinary modes, but with no adequate re- 
turn for my labour. I then considered 
myself amply justified in resorting to that 
heroick treatment the felicity of which, as 
applied by the great Bentley to Milton, 
had long ago enlisted my admiration. In- 
deed, I had already made up my mind, 
that, in case good fortune should throw 
any such invaluable record in my way, I 
would proceed with it in the following 
simple and satisfactory method. After a 
cursory examination, merely sufficing for 
an approximative estimate of its length, I 
would write down a hypothetical inscrip- 
tion based upon antecedent probabilities, 
and then proceed to extract from the char- 
acters engraven on the stone a meaning as 
nearly as possible conformed to this a 
priori product of my own ingenuity. The 
result more than justified my hopes, inas- 
much as the two' inscriptions were made 
without any great violence to tally in all 
essential particulars. I- then proceeded, 
not without some anxiety, to my second 
test, which was, to read the Runick letters 
diagonally, and again with the same suc- 
cess. With an excitement pardonable 
under the circumstances, yet tempered 
with thankful humility, I now applied my 
last and severest trial, my experimentum 
crucis. I turned the stone, now doubly 
precious in my eyes, with scrupulous ex- 
actness upside down. The physical exer- 
tion so far displaced my spectacles as to 
derange for a moment the focus of vision. 
I confess that it was with some tremulous- 
ness that I readjusted them upon my nose. 



and prepared my mind to bear with calm- 
ness any disappointment that might ensue. 
But, albo dies notanda lapillo ! what 
was my delight to find that the change of 
position had effected none in the sense of 
the writing, even by so much as a single 
letter ! I was now, and justly, as I think, 
satisfied of the conscientious exactness of 
my interpretation. It is as follows : — 

HERE 

BJARNA GRIMOLFSSON 

FIRST DRANK CLOUD-BROTHER 

THROUGH CHILD-OF-LAND-AND- 

WATER : 

that is, drew smoke through a reed stem. 
In other words, we have here a record of 
the first smoking of the herb Nicotiana 
Tabacum by an European on this conti- 
nent. The probable results of this discov- 
ery are so vast as to baffle conjecture. If 
it be objected, that the smoking of a pipe 
would hardly justify the setting up of a 
memorial stone, I answer, that even now 
the Moquis Indian, ere he takes his first 
whiff, bows reverently toward the four 
quarters of the sky in succession, and that 
the loftiest monuments have been reared 
to perpetuate fame, which is the dream of 
the shadow of smoke. The Saga, it will 
be remembered, leaves this Bjarna to a 
fate something like that of Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert, on board a sinking ship in the 
" wormy sea," having generously given up 
his place in the boat to a certain Ice- 
lander. It is doubly pleasant, therefore, 
to meet with this proof that the brave 
old man arrived safely in Vinland, and 
that his declining years were cheered by 
the respectful attentions of the dusky 
denizens of our then uninvaded forests. 
Most of all was I gratified, however, in 
thus linking forever the name of my na- 
tive town with one of the most momentous 
occurrences of modern times. Hitherto 
Jaalam, though in soil, climate, and geo- 
graphical position as highly qualified to 
be the theatre of remarkable historical in- 
cidents as any spot on the earth's surface 
has been, if I may say it without seeming 
to question the wisdom of Providence, 
almost maliciously neglected, as it might 
appear, by occurrences of world-wide in- 
terest in want of a situation. And in 
matters of this nature it must be confessed 
that adequate events are as necessary as 
the vates sacer to record them. Jaalam 
stood always modestly ready, but circum- 
stances made no fitting response to her 
generous intentions. Now, however, she 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



265 



assumes her place on the historick roll. 
I have hitherto been a zealous opponent 
of the Circean herb, but I shall now re- 
examine the question without bias. 

I am aware that the Rev. Jonas Tutchel, 
in a recent communication to the Bogus 
Four Corners Weekly Meridian, has en- 
deavored to show that this is the sepul- 
chral inscription of Thorwald Eriksson, 
who, as is well known, was slain in Vinland 
by the natives. But I think he has been 
misled by a preconceived theory, and can- 
not but feel that he has thus made an un- 
gracious return for my allowing him to 
inspect the stone with the aid of my own 
glasses (he having by accident left his at 
home) and in my own study. The heathen 
ancients might have instructed this Chris- 
tian minister in the rites of hospitality ; 
but much is to be pardoned to the spirit 
of self-love. He must indeed be ingenious 
who can make out the words her hvilir 
from any characters in the inscription in 
question, which, whatever else it may be, 
is certainly not mortuary. And even should 
the reverend gentleman succeed in persuad- 
ing some fantastical wits of the soundness 
of his views, I do not see what useful end 
he will have gained. For if the English 
Courts of Law hold the testimony of grave- 
stones from the burial-grounds of Protes- 
tant dissenters to be questionable, even 
where it is essential in proving a descent, 
I cannot conceive that the epitaphial as- 
sertions of heathens should be esteemed of 
more authority by any man of orthodox 
sentiments. 

At this moment, happening to cast my 
eyes upon the stone, whose characters a 
transverse light from my southern window 
brings out with singular distinctness, an- 
other interpretation has occurred to me, 
promising even more interesting results. 
I hasten to close my letter in order to fol- 
low at once the clew thus providentially 
suggested. 

I inclose, as usual, a contribution from 
Mr. Biglow, and remain, 

Gentlemen, with esteem and respect, 
Your Obedient Humble Servant, 

Homer Wilbur, A. M. 



I thank ye, my friens, for the warmth 

o' your greetin' : 
Ther' 's few airthly blessins but wort 's 

vain an' fleetin' ; 
But ef ther' is one thet hain't no cracks 

an' flaws, 
An' is wuth goin' in for, it 's pop'lar 

applause ; 



It sends up the sperits ez lively ez 

rockets, 
An' I feel it — wal, down to the eend o' 

my pockets. 
Jes' lovin' the people is Canaan in 

view, 
But it 's Canaan paid quarterly t' hev 

'em love you ; 
It 's a blessin' thet 's breakin' out ollus 

in fresh spots ; 
It 's a-follerin' Moses 'thout losin' the 

hesh-pots. 
But, Gennlemen, 'scuse me, I airi t sech 

a raw cus 
Ez to go luggin' ellerkence into a cau- 
cus, — 
Thet is, into one where the call compre- 
hends 
Nut the People in person, but on'y their 

friends ; 
I 'm so kin' o' used to convincin' the 

masses 
Of th' edvantage o' bein' self-governin' 

asses, 
I forgut thet tve 're all o' the sort thet 

pull wires 
An' arrange for the public their wants 

an' desires, 
An thet wut we hed met for wuz jes' to 

agree 
Wut the People's opinions in futur' should 

be. 

Now, to come to the nub, we 've ben 
all disappinted, 

An' our leadin' idees are a kind o' dis- 
jinted, — 

Though, fur ez the nateral man could 
discern, 

Things ough' to ha' took most an opper- 
site turn. 

But The'ry is jes' like a train on the 
rail, 

Thet, weather or no, puts her thru with- 
out fail, 

While Fac' 's the ole stage thet gits 
sloughed in the ruts, 

An' hez to allow for your darned efs an' 
buts, 

An' so, nut intendin' no pers'nal reflec- 
tions, 

They don't — don't nut alius, thet is, — 
make connections : 

Sometimes, when it really doos seem 
thet they 'd oughter 

Combine jest ez kindly ez new rum an' 
water, 



266 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Both '11 be jest ez sot in their ways ez a 

bagnet, 
Ez otherwise-minded ez th' eends of a 

magnet, 
An' folks like you 'n' me, thet ain't ept 

to be sold, 
Git somehow or 'nother left out in the 

cold. 

I expected 'fore this, 'thout no gret of a 

row, 
Jeff D. would ha' ben where A. Lincoln 

is now, 
"With Taney to say 't wuz all legle an' 

fair, 
An' a jury o' Deemocrats ready to 

swear 
Thet the ingin o' State gut throwed into 

the ditch 
By the fault o' the North in misplacin' 

the switch. 
Things wuz ripenin' fust-rate with 

Buchanan to nuss 'em ; 
But the People they would n't be Mex- 
icans, cuss 'em ! 
Ain't the safeguards o' freedom upsot, 'z 

you may say, 
Ef the right o' rev'lution is took clean 

away? 
An' doos n't the right primy-fashy in- 
clude 
The bein' entitled to nut be sub- 
dued? 
The fact is, we 'd gone for the Union so 

strong, 
When Union meant South ollus right 

an' North wrong, 
Thet the people gut fooled into thinkin' 

it might 
Worry on middlin' wal with the North 

in the right. 
We might ha' ben now jest ez prosp'rous 

ez France, 
Where p'litikle enterprise hez a fair 

chance, 
An' the people is heppy an' proud et this 

hour, 
Long ez they hev the votes, to let Nap 

hev the power ; 
But our folks they went an' believed 

wut we 'd told 'em, 
An', the flag once insulted, no mortle 

could hold 'em. 
'T wuz pervokin' jest when we wuz cer- 

t'in to win, — ■ 
An' I, for one, wun't trust the masses 

agin : 



For a people thet knows much ain't fit 

to be free 
In the self-cockin', back-action style o* 

J. D. 

I can't believe now but wut half on 't is 

lies; 
For who 'd thought the North wuz a- 

goin' to rise, 
Or take the pervokin'est kin' of a 

stump, 
'thout 't wuz sunthin' ez pressin' ez 

Gabr'el's las' trump? 
Or who 'd ha' supposed, arter seek swell 

an' bluster 
'bout the lick-ary-ten-on-ye fighters 

they 'd muster, 
Raised by hand on briled lightnin', ez 

op'lent 'z you please 
In a primitive furrest o' femmily- trees, — 
Who 'd ha' thought thet them South- 

uners ever 'ud show 
Starns with pedigrees to 'em like theirn 

to the foe, 
Or, when the vamosin' come, ever to 

find 
Nat'ral masters in front an' mean white 

folks behind ? 
By ginger, ef I 'd ha' known half I know 

now, 
When I wuz to Congress, I would n't, I 

swow, 
Hev let 'em cair on so high-minded an' 

sarsy, 
'thout some show o' wut you may call 

vicy-varsy. 
To be sure, we wuz under a contrac' jes' 

then 
To be drefne forbearin' towards Southun 

men ; 
We hed to go sheers in preservin' the 

bellance : 
An' ez they seemed to feel they wuz 

wastin' their tellents 
'thout some un to kick, 't warn't more 

'n proper, you know, 
Each should funnish his part ; an' sence 

they found the toe, 
An' we wuz n't cherubs — wal, we found 

the buffer, 
For fear thet the Compromise System 
should suffer. 

I wun't say the plan hed n't onpleasant 

featurs, — 
For men are perverse an' onreasoniri 

creaturs, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



267 



An' forgit thet in this life 't ain't likely 

to heppen 
Their own privit fancy should ollus be 

cappen, — 
But it worked jest ez smooth ez the key 

of a safe, 
An' the gret Union bearins played free 

from all chafe. 
They warn't hard to suit, ef they hed 

their own way, 
An' we (thet is, some on us) made the 

thing pay : 
't wuz a fair give-an'-take out of Uncle 

Sam's heap ; 
Ef they took wut warn't theirn, wut we 

give come ez cheap ; 
The elect gut the offices down to tide- 
waiter, 
The people took skinnin' ez mild ez a 

tater, 
Seemed to choose who they wanted tu, 

footed the bills, 
An' felt kind o' 'z though they wuz 

havin' their wills, 
Which kep' 'em ez harmless an' cherfle 

ez crickets, 
While all we invested wuz names on the 

tickets : 
Wal, ther' 's nothin', for folks fond o' 

lib'ral consumption 
Free o' charge, like democ'acy tempered 

with gumption ! 

Now warn't thet a system wuth pains in 

presarvin', 
Where the people found jints an' their 

frien's done the carvin', — 
Where the many done all o' their think- 
in' by proxy, 
An' were proud on 't ez long ez 't wuz 

christened Democ'cy, — 
Where the few let us sap all o' Freedom's 

foundations, 
Ef you call it reformin' with prudence 

an' patience, 
An' were willin' Jeffs snake-egg should 

hetch with the rest, 
Ef you writ " Constitootional " over the 

nest? 
But it 's all out o' kilter, ft wuz too good 

to last,) 
An' all jes' by J. D.'s perceedin' too 

fast; 
Ef he 'd on'y hung on for a month or 

two more, 
We 'd ha' gut things fixed nicer 'n they 

hed ben before : 



Afore he drawed off an' lef all in confu- 
sion, 

We wuz safely entrenched in the ole 
Constitootion, 

With an outlyin', heavy-gun, casemated 
fort 

To rake all assailants, — I mean th' S. J. 
Court. 

Now I never '11 acknowledge (nut ef you 
, should skin me) 

't wuz wise to abandon sech works to the 
> in'my, 

An' let him fin' out thet wut scared him 
so long, 

Our whole line of argyments, lookin' so 
strong, 

All our Scriptur an' law, every the'ry 
an' fac', 

Wuz Quaker-guns daubed with Pro- 
slavery black. 

Why, ef the Republicans ever should 

'git 

Andy Johnson or some one to lend 'em 
the wit 

An' the spunk jes' to mount Constitoo- 
tion an' Court 

With Columbiad guns, your real ekle- 
rights sort, 

Or drill out the spike from the ole Dec- 
laration 

Thet can kerry a solid shot clearn roun' 
creation, 

We 'd better take maysures for shettin' 
up shop, 

An' put off our stock by a vendoo or 
swop. 

But they wun't never dare tu ; you '11 

see 'em in Edom 
'fore they ventur' to go where their doc- 
trines 'ud lead 'em : 
They 've ben takin' our princerples up ez 

we dropt 'em, 
An' thought it wuz terrible 'cute to 

adopt 'em ; 
But they '11 fin' out 'fore long thet their 

hope 's ben deceivin' 'em, 
An' thet princerples ain't o' no good, ef 

you b'lieve in 'em ; 
It makes 'em tu stiff for a party to 

use, 
Where they 'd ough' to be easy 'z an ole 

pair o' shoes. 
If we say 'n our pletform thet all men 

are brothers, 
We don't mean thet some folks ain't 

more so 'n some others ; 



268 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



An' it 's wal understood thet we make a 

selection, 
An' thet brotherhood kin' o' subsides 

arter 'lection. 
The fust thing for sound politicians to 

larn is, 
Thet Truth, to dror kindly in all sorts 

o' harness, 
Mus' be kep' in the abstract, — for, come 

to apply it, 
You 're ept to hurt some folks' s interists 

by it. 
"Wal, these 'ere Ptepublicans (some on 

'em) ects 
Ez though gineral mexims 'ud suit 

speshle facts ; 
An' there 's where we '11 nick 'em, there 's 

where they '11 be lost : 
For applyin' your princerple 's wut makes 

it cost, 
An' folks don't want Fourth o' July t' 

interfere 
With the business-consarns o' the rest o' 

the year, 
No more 'n they want Sunday to pry an' 

to peek 
Into wut they are doin' the rest o' the 

week. 

A ginooine statesman should be on his 

guard, 
Ef he must hev beliefs, nut to b'lieve 'em 

tu hard ; 
For, ez sure ez he does, he '11 be blartin' 

'em out 
'thout regardin' the natur' o' man more 

'n a spout, 
Nor it don't ask much gumption to pick 

out a flaw 
In a party whose leaders are loose in the 

jaw : 
An' so in our own case I ventur' to 

hint 
Thet we 'd better nut air our perceedin's 

in print, 
Nor pass resserlootions ez long ez your 

arm 
Thet may, ez things heppen to turn, do 

us harm ; 
For when you 've done all your real 

meanin' to smother, 
The darned things '11 up an' mean sun- 
thin' or 'nother. 
JefT'son prob'ly meant wal with his "born 

free an' ekle," 
But it 's turned out a real crooked stick 

in the sekle ; 



It 's taken full eighty-odd year — don't 

you see? — 
From the pop'lar belief to root out thet 

idee, 
An', arter all, suckers on 't keep buddin' 

forth 
In the nat'lly onprincipled mind o' the 

North. 
No, never say nothin' without you 're 

compelled tu, 
An' then don't say nothin' thet you can 

be held tu, 
Nor don't leave no friction-idees layin' 

loose 
For the ign'ant to put to incend'ary 

use. 

You know I 'm a feller thet keeps a 

skinned eye 
On the leetle events thet go skurryin 

by, 

Coz it \s of'ner by them than by gret 

ones you '11 see 
Wut the p'litickle weather is likely to 

be. 
Now I don't think the South 's more 'n 

begun to be licked, 
But I die think, ez Jeff says, the wind- 
bag 's gut pricked ; 
It '11 blow for a spell an' keep puffin' an' 

wmeezin', 
The tighter our army an' navy keep 

squeezin', — 
For they can't help spread -eaglein' long 

'z ther' 's a mouth 
To blow Enfield's Speaker thru lef at 

the South. 
But it 's high time for us to be settin' 

our faces 
Towards reconstructin' the national ba- 
sis, 
AVith an eye to beginnin' agin on the 

jolly ticks 
We used to chalk up 'hind the back-door 

o' politics; 
An' the fus' thing 's to save wut of 

Slav'ry ther' 's lef 
Arter this (I mus' call it) imprudence o' 

Jeff: 
For a real good Abuse, with its roots fur 

an' wide, 
Is the kin' o' thing / like to hev on my 

side ; 
A Scriptur' name makes it ez sweet ez a 

rose, 
An' it 's tougher the older an' uglier it 

grows — 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



269 



(I ain't speakin' now o' the righteous- 
ness of it, 

But the p'litickle purchase it gives an' 
the profit). 

Things look pooty squally, it must be 

allowed, 
An' 1 don't see much signs of a bow in 

the cloud : 
Ther' 's too many Deemocrats — leaders 

wut 's wuss — 
Thet go for the Union 'thout carin' a 

cuss 
Ef it helps ary party thet ever wuz 

heard on, 
So our eagle ain't made a split Austrian 

bird on. 
But ther' 's still some consarvative signs 

to be found 
Thet shows the gret heart o' the People 

is sound : 
(Excuse me for usin' a stump-phrase 

agin, 
But, once in the way on 't, they will 

stick like sin :) 
There 's Phillips, for instance, hez jes' 

ketched a Tartar 
In the Law-'n' -Order Party of ole Cin- 

cinnater ; 
An' the Compromise System ain't gone 

out o' reach, 
Long 'z you keep the right limits on 

freedom o' speech. 
'T warn't none too late, neither, to put 

on the gag, 
For he 's dangerous now he goes in for 

the flag. 
Nut thet I altogether approve o' bad 

eggs, 
They 're inos' gin'lly argymunt on its 

las' legs, — 
An' their logic is ept to be tu indis- 
criminate, 
Nor don't ollus wait the right objecs to 

'liminate; 
But there is a variet} 7 " on 'em, you '11 

rind, 
Jest ez usefle an' more, besides bein' 

refined, — 
I mean o' the sort thet are laid by the 

dictionary, 
Sech ez sophisms an' cant, thet '11 kerry 

conviction ary 
Way thet you want to the right class o' 

men, 
An' are staler than all 't ever come from 

a hen : 



" Disunion" done wal till our resh 

Southun friends 
Took the savor all out on 't for national 

ends; 
But 1 guess " Abolition " '11 work a spell 

yit, 

When the war 's done, an' so will " For- 

give-an'-forgit." 
Times mus' be pooty thoroughly out o' 

all jint, 
Ef we can't make a good constitootional 

pint ; 
An' the good time '11 come to be grindin' 

our exes, 
When the war goes to seed in the nettle 

o' texes: 
Ef J on' than don't squirm, with sech 

helps to assist him, 
I give up my faith in the free-suffrage 

system ; 
Democ'cy wun't be nut a mite inter- 

estin', 
Nor p'litikle capital much wuth in- 

vestin' ; 
An' my notion is, to keep dark an' lay 

low 
Till we see the right minute to put in 

our blow. — 

But I 've talked longer now 'n I hed any 

idee, 
An' ther' 's others you want to hear 

more 'n you du me ; 
So I '11 set down an' give thet 'ere bottle 

a skrimmage, 
For I 've spoke till I 'm dry ez a real 

graven image. 



No. VI. 
SUNTHIN' IN THE PASTORAL LINE. 

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam, 17th May, 1862. 
Gentlemen, — At the special request of 
Mr. Biglow, I intended to inclose, together 
with his own contribution, (into which, 
at my suggestion, he has thrown a little 
more of pastoral sentiment than usual,) 
some passages from my sermon on the day 
of the National Fast, from the text, " Re- 
member them that are in bonds, as bound 
with them," Heb. xiii. 3. But I have not 



270 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



leisure sufficient at present for the copy- 
ing of them, even were I altogether satis- 
fied with the production as it stands. I 
should prefer, I confess, to contribute the 
entire discourse to the pages of your re- 
spectable miscellany, if it should be found 
acceptable upon perusal, especially as I 
find the difficulty of selection of greater 
magnitude than I had anticipated. What 
passes without challenge in the fervour of 
oral delivery, cannot always stand the 
colder criticism of the closet. I am not 
so great an enemy of Eloquence as my 
friend Mr. Biglow would appear to be from 
some passages in his contribution for the 
current month. I would not, indeed, 
hastily suspect him of covertly glancing at 
myself in his somewhat caustick animad- 
versions, albeit some of the phrases he 
girds at are not entire strangers to my lips. 
I am a more hearty admirer of the Puri- 
tans than seems now to be the fashion, and 
believe, that, if they Hebraized a little too 
much in their speech, they showed remark- 
able practical sagacity as statesmen and 
founders. But such phenomena as Puri- 
tanism are the results rather of great relig- 
ious than merely social convulsions, and 
do not long survive them . So soon as an 
earnest conviction has cooled into a phrase, 
its work is over, and the best that can be 
done with it is to bury it. Ite, missa est. 
I am inclined to agree with Mr. Biglow 
that we cannot settle the great political 
questions which are now presenting them- 
selves to the nation by the opinions of 
Jeremiah or Ezekiel as to the wants and 
duties of the Jews in their time, nor do I 
believe that an entire community with 
their feelings and views would be practica- 
ble or even agreeable at the present day. 
At the same time I could wish that their 
habit of subordinating the actual to the 
moral, the flesh to the spirit, and this 
world to the other, were more common. 
They had found out, at least, the great 
military secret that soul weighs more than 
body. — But I am suddenly called to a 
sick-bed in the household of a valued par- 
ishioner. 

With esteem and respect, 

Your obedient servant, 

Homer Wilbur. 



Once git a smell o' musk into a draw, 
An' it clings hold like precerdents in 

law : 
Your gra' ma'am put it there, — when, 

goodness knows, — 
To jes' this-worldify her Sunday-clo'es ; 



But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'- 

son's wife, 
(For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in 

^ life?) 
An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks 

dread 
0' the spare chamber, slinks into the 

shed, 
Where, dim with dust, it fust or last 

subsides 
To holdin' seeds an' fifty things besides ; 
But better days stick fast in heart an' 

husk, 
An' all you keep in 't gits a scent o' 

inusk. 

Jes' so with poets : wut they 've airly read 
Gits kind o' worked into their heart an' 

head, 
So 's 't they can't seem to write but jest 

on sheers 
With furrin countries or played-out 

ideers,* 
Nor hev a feelin', ef it doos n't smack 
0' wut some critter chose to feel 'way 

back : 
This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' 

things, 
Ez though we 'd nothin' here that blows 

an' sings, — 
(Why, I 'd give more for one live bobo- 
link 
Than a square mile o' larks in printer's 

ink,) — 
This makes 'em think our fust o' May is 

May, 
Which 't ain't, for all the almanicks can 

say. 

little city-gals, don't never go it 

Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet ! 

They 're apt to puff, an' May-day sel- 
dom looks 

Up in the country ez it doos in books ; 

They 're no more like than hornets'- 
nests an' hives, 

Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. 

I, with my trouses perched on cowhide 
boots, 

Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the 
roots, 

Hev seen ye come to fling on April's 
hearse 

Your muslin nosegays from the mil- 
liner's, 

Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen 
to choose, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



271 



An' dance your throats sore in morocker 

shoes : 
I 've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come 

wut would, 
Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with 

hardihood. 
Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' 

winch, 
Ez though 't wuz sunthin' paid for by 

the inch ; 
But yit we du contrive to worry thru, 
Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing's to du, 
An' kerry a hollerday, ef we set out, 
Ez stiddily ez though 't wuz a redoubt. 

I, countrv-born an' bred, know where to 

find* 
Some blooms thet make the season suit 

the mind, 
An' seem to metch the doubtin' blue- 
bird's notes, — 
Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, 
Bloodroots, whose rolled- up leaves ef 

you oncurl, 
Each on 'em 's cradle to a baby-pearl, — 
But these are jes' Spring's pickets ; sure 

ez sin, 
The rebble frosts '11 try to drive 'em in ; 
For half our May 's so awfully like 

May n't, 
't would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint ; 
Though I own up I like our back'ard 

springs 
Thet kind o' haggle with their greens 

an' things, 
An' when you 'most give up, 'ithout 

more words 
Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, 

an' birds : 
Thet 's ISTorthun natur', slow an' apt to 

doubt, 
But when it doos git stirred, ther' 's no 

gin-out ! 

Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in 
tall trees, 

An' settlin' things in windy Congresses, — 

Queer politicians, though, for I '11 be 
skinned 

Ef all on 'em don't head aginst the wind. 

'fore long the trees begin to show be- 
lief, — 

The maple crimsons to a coral-reef, 

Then saflern swarms swing off from all 
the willers 

So plump they look like yaller caterpil- 
lars, 



Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands 
unfold 

Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old : 

Thet 's robin-redbreast's almanick ; he 
knows 

Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom- 
snows ; 

So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' 
spouse, 

He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. 

Then seems to come a hitch, — things 

lag behind, 
Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up 

her mind, 
An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh 

their dams 
Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in 

an' jams, 
"A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole 

cleft, 
Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right 

an' left, 
Then all the waters bow themselves an' 

come, 
Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' 

foam, 
Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' in tune 
An' gives one leap from April into 

June : 
Then all comes crowdin' in ; afore you 

think, 
Young oak -leaves mist the side-hill 

woods with pink ; 
The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud ; 
The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud ; 
Red-cedars blossom tu, though few folks 

know it, 
An' look all dipt in sunshine like a poet ; 
The lime-trees pile their solid stacks o' 

shade 
An' drows'ly simmer with the bees' 

sweet trade ; 
In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird 

clings 
An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock 

slings ; 
All down the loose-walled lanes in 

archin' bowers 
The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden 

flowers, 
Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals 

love to try 
With pins, — they '11 worry yourn so, 

boys, bimeby ! 
But I don't love your catalogue style, — 

do you ? — 



272 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Ez ef to sell off Natur' by vendoo ; 
One word with blood in 't 's twice ez 

good ez two : 
'nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the 

year, 
Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here ; 
Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he 

swings, 
Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiv- 

erin' wings, 
Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, 
Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru 

the air. 

I ollus feel the sap start in my veins 
In Spring, with curus heats an' prickly 

pains, 
Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to 

walk 
Off by myself to hev a privit talk 
With a queer critter thet can't seem to 

'gree 
Along o' me like most folks, — Mister 

Me. 
Ther' 's times when I 'm unsoshle ez a 

stone, 
An' sort o' suffocate to be alone, — 
I 'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are 

nigh, 
An' can't bear nothin' closer than the 

sky; 
Now the wind 's full ez shifty in the 

mind 
Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, 
An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west 

weather, 
My innard vane pints east for weeks to- 
gether, 
My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins 
Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp 

ez pins : 
Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight 
An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight 
With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf, 
The crook'dest stick in all the heap, — 

Myself. 

'T wuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'- 

time : 
Findin' my feelin's would n't noways 

rhyme 
With nobody's, but off the hendle flew 
An' took things from an east-wind pint 

o' view, 
I started off to lose me in the hills 
Where the pines be, up back o' 'Siah's 

Mills : 



Pines, ef you 're blue, are the best friends 

1 know, 
They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feel- 
in's so, — 
They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I 

swan, 
You half-forgit you 've gut a body on. 
Ther' 's a small school us' there where 

four roads meet, 
The door-steps hollered out by little feet, 
An' side-posts carved with names whose 

owners grew 
To gret men, some on 'em, an' deacons, 

tu ; 
't ain't used no longer, coz the town 

hez gut 
A high- school, where they teach the 

Lord knows wut : 
Three-story larnin' 's pop'lar now ; I 

guess 
We thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less, 
For it strikes me ther' 's sech a thing ez 

sinnin' 
By overloadin' children's underpinnin' : 
Wal, here it wuz I lamed my ABC, 
An' it 's a kind o' favorite spot with me. 

We 're curus critters : Now ain't jes' the 

minute 
Thet ever fits us easy while we 're in 

it; 
Long ez 't wuz futur', 't would be perfect 

bliss, — 
Soon ez it 's past, thet time 's wuth ten 

o' this ; 
An' yit there ain't a man thet need be 

told 
Thet Now 's the only bird lays eggs o' 

goR 
A knee-high lad, I used to plot an' plan 
An' think 't wuz life's cap-sheaf to he a 

man ; 
Now, gittin' gray, there's nothin' I enjoy 
Like dreamin' back along into a boy : 
So the ole school'us' is a place I choose 
Afore all others, ef I want to muse ; 
1 set dowm where I used to set, an' git 
My boyhood back, an' better things with 

. it, — 
Faith, Hope, an' sun thin', ef it is n't 

Cherrity, 
It 's want o' guile, an' thet 's ez gret a 

rerrity, — 
While Fancy's cushin', free to Prince 

and Clown, 
Makes the hard bench ez soft ez milk- 
weed-down. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath 

arternoon 
Thet I sot out to tramp myself in tune, 
I found me in the school'us' on my seat, 
Drummm the march to No-wheres with 

my feet. 
Thinkin' o' nothin', I 've heerd ole folks 

say 
Is a hard kind o' dooty in its way : 
It 's thinkin' every thin' you ever knew, 
Or ever hearn, to make your feelin's blue. 
I sot there tryin' thet on for a spell : 
I thought o' the Rebellion, then o' Hell, 
Which some folks tell ye now is jest a 

metterfor 
(A the'ry, p'raps, it wun't feel none the 

better for) ; 
I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we 'd 

win 
Pat chin' our patent self- blow -up agin : 
I thought ef this 'ere milkin' o' the 

wits, 
So much a month, warn't givin' Natur' 

fits,— 
Ef folks warn't druv, findin' their own 

milk fail, 
To work the cow thet hez an iron tail, 
An' ef idees 'thout ripenin' in the pan 
"Would send up cream to humor ary man : 
From this to thet I let my worryin' creep, 
Till finally I must ha' fell asleep. 

Our lives in sleep are some like streams 

thet glide 
'twixt flesh an' sperrit boundin' on each 

side, 
Where both shores' shadders kind o' 

mix an' mingle 
In sunthin' thet ain't jes' like either 

single ; 
An' when you cast off moorin's from 

To-day, 
An' down towards To-morrer drift away, 
The imiges thet tengle on the stream 
Make a new upside- down' ard world o' 

dream : 
Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks 

an' warnin's 
0' wut '11 be in Heaven on Sabbath- 
morn in' s, 
An', mixed right in ez ef jest out o' spite, 
Sunthin' thet says your supper ain't gone 

right. 
I 'm gret on dreams, an' often when I 

wake, 
1 've lived so much it makes my mem'ry 

ache, 

18 



An' can't skurce take a cat-nap in my 

cheer 
'thout hevin' 'em, some good, some bad, 

all queer. 

Now I wuz settin' where I 'd ben, it 

seemed, 
An' ain't sure yit whether I r'ally 

dreamed, 
Nor, ef I did, how long I might ha' 

slep', 
When I hearn some un stompin' up the 

step, 
An' lookin' round, ef two an' two make 

four, 
I see a Pilgrim Father in the door. 
He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an' 

spurs 
With rowels to 'em big ez ches'liut-burrs, 
An' his gret sword behind him sloped 

away 
Long 'z a man's speech thet dunno wut 

to say. — 
" Ef your name 's Biglow, an' your 

given-name 
Hosee," sez he, " it 's arter you I came ; 
I 'm your gret-gran'ther multiplied by 

three." — 
"My wut ? " sez I. — " Your gret-gret- 

gret," sez he : 
" You would n't ha' never ben here but 

for me. 
Two hundred an' three year ago this May 
The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay ; 
I 'd been a cunnle in our Civil War, — 
But wut on airth hev you gut up one for ? 
Coz we du things in England, 't ain't for 

you 
To git a notion you can du 'em tu : 
I 'm told you write in public prints : ef 

true, 
It 's nateral you should know a thing 

or two." — 
"Thet air's an argymunt I can't en- 
dorse, — 
't would prove, coz you wear spurs, you 

kep' a horse : 
For brains," sez I, " wutever you may 

think, 
Ain't boun' to cash the drafs o' pen-an'- 

ink, — 
Though mos' folks write ez ef they hoped 

jes' quickenin' 
The churn would argoo skim-milk into 

thickenin' ; 
But skim-milk ain't a thing to chang* 

its view 



274 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



0' wut it 's meant for more 'n a smoky 

flue. 
But du pray tell me, 'fore we furder go, 
How in all Natur' did you come to know 
'bout our affairs," sez I, "in Kingdom- 
Come ? " — 
" Wal, I worked round at sperrit-rappin 

some, 
An' danced the tables till their legs wuz 

gone, 
In hopes o' larnin' wut wuz goin' on, " 
Sez he, "but mejums lie so like all-split 
Thet I concluded it wuz best to quit. 
But, come now, ef you wun't confess to 

knowin', 
You 've some conjectures how the 

thing 's a-goin\" — 
"Gran'ther," sez I, "a vane warn't 

never known 
Nor asked to hev a jedgment of its own ; 
An' yit, ef 't ain't gut rustj in the jints, 
It 's safe to trust its say on certin pints : 
It knows the wind's opinions to a T, 
An' the wind settles wut the weather '11 

be." 
" I never thought a scion of our stock 
Could grow the wood to make a weather- 
cock ; 
When I wuz younger 'n you, skurce 

more 'n a shaver, 
No airthly wind," sez he, "could make 

me waver ! " 
(Ez he said this, he clinched his jaw an' 

forehead, 
Hitchin' his belt to bring his sword-hilt 

forrard.) — 
"Jes so it wuz with me," sez I, "Iswow, 
When 2" wuz younger 'n wut you see me 

now, — 
Nothin' from Adam's fall to Huldy's 

bonnet, 
Thet I warn't full-cocked with my jedg- 
ment on it ; 
But now I 'm gittin' on in life, I find 
It's a sight harder to make up my 

mind, — 
Nor I don't often try tu, when events 
Will du it for me free of all expense. 
The moral question 's ollus plain 

enough, — 
It 's jes' the human-natur' side thet 's 

tough ; 
Wut 's best to think may n't puzzle me 

nor you, — 
The pinch comes in decidin' wut to du; 
Ef you read History, all runs smooth ez 

grease, 



Coz there the men ain't nothin' more 'n 

idees, — 
But come to make it, ez we must to-day, 
Th' idees hev arms an' legs an' stop the 

way : 
It's easy fixin' things in facts an' fig- 

gers, — 
They can't resist, nor warn't brought up 

with niggers ; 
But come to try your the'ry on, — why, 

then 
Your facts an' figgers change to ign'ant 

men 
Actin' ez ugly — " — "Smite 'em hip 

an' thigh ! " 
Sez gran'ther, "and let every man-child 

die! 
Oh for three weeks o' Crommle an' the 

Lord ! 
Up, Isr'el, to your tents an' grind the 

sword ! " — 
"Thet kind o' thing worked wal in ole 

Judee, 
But you forgit hew long it 's ben A. D. ; 
You think thet 's ellerkence, — I call it 

shoddy, 
A thing," sez I, " wun't cover soul nor 

body; 
I like the plain all-wool o' common- 
sense, 
Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelve- 
month hence. 
You took to follerin' where the Prophets 

beckoned, 
An', fust you knowed on, back come 

Charles the Second ; 
Now wut I want 's to hev all we gain 

stick, 
An' not to start Millennium too quick ; 
We hain't to punish only, but to keep, 
An' the cure 's gut to go a cent'ry deep." 
" Wal, milk-an'- water ain't the best o' 

glue," 
Sez he, ' * an' so you '11 find- before you 're 

thru ; 
Ef reshness venters sunthin', shilly- 
shally 
Loses ez often wut 's ten times the vally. 
Thet exe of ourn, when Charles's neck 

gut split, 
Opened a gap thet ain't bridged over yit : 
Slav'ry 's your Charles, the Lord hez gin 

the exe — " 
"Our Charles," sez I, "hez gut eight 

million necks. 
The hardest question ain't the black 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



275 



The trouble is to 'mancipate the white ; 
One's chained in body an' can be sot 

free, 
But t' other 's chained in soul to an idee : 
It 's a long job, but we shall worry thru 

it; 
Ef bagnets fail, the spellin'-book must 

du it." 
" Hosee," sez he, "I think you 're goin' 

to fail : 
The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the 

tail ; 
This 'ere rebellion 's nothin but the 

rettle, — 
You '11 stomp on thet an' think you 've 

won the bettle ; 
It 's Slavery thet 's the fangs an' thinkin' 

head, 
An' ef you want selvation, cresh it 

dead, — 
An' cresh it suddin, or you '11 lam by 

w T aitin' 
Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to de- 

batin' !" — 
"God's truth ! " sez I, — "an' ef /held 

the club, 
An' knowed jes' where to strike, — but 

there 's the rub ! " — 
"Strike soon," sez he, "or you'll be 

deadly ailin', — 
Folks thet 's afeared to fail are sure o' 

failin' ; 
God hates your sneakin' creturs thet 

believe 
He '11 settle things they run away an' 

leave !" 
He brought his foot down fercely, ez he 

spoke, 
An' give me sech a startle thet I woke. 



No. VII. 
LATEST VIEWS OF MR. BIGLOW. 

PRELIMINARY NOTE. 

[It is with feelings of the liveliest pain 
that we inform our readers of the death of 
the Reverend Homer Wilbur, A. M., which 
took place suddenly, by an apoplectic 
stroke, on the afternoon of Christmas day, 
1862. Our venerable friend (for so we 
may venture to call him, though we never 
enjoyed the high privilege of his personal 
acquaintance) was in his eighty-fourth 
year, having been bom June 12, 1779, at 



Pigsgusset Precinct (now West Jerusha) 
in the then District of Maine. Graduated 
with distinction at Hubville College in 
1805, he pursued his theological studies 
with the late Reverend Preserved Thacker, 
D. D., and was called to the charge of the 
First Society in Jaalam in 1809, where he 
remained till his death. 

"As an antiquary he has probably left 
no superior, if, indeed, an equal," writes 
his friend and colleague, the Reverend 
Jeduthun Hitchcock, to whom we are 
indebted for the above facts ; "in proof of 
which I need only allude to his ( History 
of Jaalam, Genealogical, Topographical, 
and Ecclesiastical,' 1849, which has won 
him an eminent and enduring place in our 
more solid and useful literature. It is 
only to be regretted that his intense appli- 
cation to historical studies should have so 
entirely withdrawn him from the pursuit 
of poetical composition, for which he was 
endowed by Nature with a remarkable 
aptitude. His well-known hymn, begin- 
ning 'With- clouds of care encompassed 
round,' has been attributed in some collec- 
tions to the late President Dwight, and it 
is hardly presumptuous to affirm that the 
simile of the rainbow in the eighth stanza 
would do no discredit to that polished 
pen." 

We regret that we have not room at 
present for the whole of Mr. Hitchcock's 
exceedingly valuable communication. We 
hope to lay more liberal extracts from it 
before our readers at an early day. A 
summary of its contents will give some 
notion of its importance and interest. It 
contains : 1st, A biographical sketch of 
Mr. Wilbur, with notices of his predeces- 
sors in the pastoral office, and of eminent 
clerical contemporaries ; 2d, An obitu- 
ary of deceased, from the Punkin-Falls 
" Weekly Parallel " ; 3d, A list of his 
printed and manuscript productions and 
of projected works ; 4th, Personal anec- 
dotes and recollections, with specimens of 
table-talk ; 5th, A tribute to his relict, 
Mrs. Dorcas (Pilcox) Wilbur ; 6th, A list 
of graduates fitted for different colleges by 
Mr. Wilbur, with biographical memoranda 
touching the more distinguished ; 7th, 
Concerning learned, charitable, and other 
societies, of which Mr. Wilbur was a 
member, and of those with which, had his 
life been prolonged, he would doubtless 
have been associated, with a complete cat- 
alogue of such Americans as have been 
Fellows of the Royal Society ; 8th, A brief 
summary of Mr. Wilbur's latest conclu- 
sions concerning the Tenth Horn of the 
Beast in its special application to recent 
events for which the public, as Mr. Hitch- 



276 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



cock assures us, have been waiting with 
feelings of lively anticipation ; 9th, Mr. 
Hitchcock's own views on the same topic ; 
and, 10th, A brief essay on the impor- 
tance of local histories. It will be appar- 
ent that the duty of preparing Mr. Wil- 
bur's biography could not have fallen 
into more sympathetic hands. 

In a private letter with which the rev- 
erend gentleman has since favored us, he 
expresses the opinion that Mr. Wilbur's 
life was shortened by our unhappy civil 
war. It disturbed his studies, dislocated 
all his habitual associations and trains of 
thought, and unsettled the foundations of 
a faith, rather the result of habit than 
conviction, in the capacity of man for 
self-government. "Such has been the 
felicity of my life," he said to Mr. Hitch- 
cock, on the very morning of the day he 
died, " that, through the divine mercy, I 
could always say, Summum nee metuo 
diem, nee opto. It has been my habit, as 
you know, on every recurrence of this 
blessed anniversary, to read Milton's 
' Hymn of the Nativity ' till its sublime 
harmonies so dilated my soul and quick- 
ened its spiritual sense that I seemed to 
hear that other song which gave assurance 
to the shepherds that there was One who 
would lead them also in green pastures 
and beside the still waters. But to-day I 
have been unable to think of anything but 
that mournful text, 'I came not to send 
peace, but a sword,' and, did it not smack 
of pagan presumptuousness, could almost 
wish 1 had never lived to see this day." 

Mr. Hitchcock also informs us that his 
friend "lies buried in the Jaalam grave- 
yard, under a large red-cedar which he 
specially admired. A neat and substan- 
tial monument is to be erected over his 
remains, with a Latin epitaph written by 
himself ; for he was accustomed to say, 
pleasantly, 'that there was at least one 
occasion in a scholar's life when he might 
show the advantages of a classical train- 
ing." 

The following fragment of a letter ad- 
dressed to us, and apparently intended to 
accompany Mr. Biglow's contribution to 
the present number, was found upon his 
table after his decease. — Editors Atlan- 
tic Monthly.] 

to the editors of the atlantic 

MONTHLY. 

Jaalam, 24th Dec, 1862. 
Respected Sirs, —The infirm state of 
my bodily health would be a sufficient 
apology for not taking up the pen at this 



time, wholesome as I deem it for the mind 
to apricate in the shelter of epistolary con- 
fidence, were it not that a considerable, I 
might even say a large, number of individ- 
uals in this parish expect from their pas- 
tor some publick expression of sentiment 
at this crisis. Moreover, Qui tacitus ardet 
magis uritur. In trying times like these, 
the besetting sin of undisciplined minds is 
to seek refuge from inexplicable realities 
in the dangerous stimulant of angry par- 
tisanship or the indolent narcotick of 
vague and hopeful vaticination : fortu- 
namque suo temperat arbitrio. Both by 
reason of my age and my natural temper- 
ament, I am unfitted for either. Unable 
to penetrate the inscrutable judgments of 
God, I am more than ever thankful that 
my life has been prolonged till I could 
in some small measure comprehend His 
mercy. As there is no man who does not 
at some time render himself amenable to 
the one, — quum vix Justus sit securus, — 
so there is none that does not feel himself 
in daily need of the other. 

I confess I cannot feel, as some do, a 
personal consolation for the manifest evils 
of this war in any remote or contingent 
advantages that may spring from it. I am 
old and weak, I can bear little, and can 
scarce hope to see better days ; nor is it 
any adequate compensation to know that 
Nature is old and strong and can bear 
much. Old men philosophize over the 
past, but the present is only a burthen and 
a weariness. The one lies before them like 
a placid evening landscape ; the other is 
full of the vexations and anxieties of house- 
keeping. It may be true enough that mis- 
cet hcec illis, prohibetque Clotho fortunam 
stare, but he who said it was fain at last 
to call in Atropos with her shears before 
her time ; and I cannot help selfishly 
mourning that the fortune of our Repub- 
lick could not at least stand till my days 
were numbered. 

Tibullus would find the origin of wars in 
the great exaggeration of riches, and does 
not stick to say that in the days of the 
beechen trencher there was peace. But 
averse as I am by nature from all wars, 
the more as they have been especially fatal 
to libraries, I would have this one go on 
till we are reduced to wooden platters 
again, rather than surrender the principle 
to defend which it was undertaken. Though 
I believe Slavery to have been the cause of 
it, by so thoroughly demoralizing Northern 
politicks for its own purposes as to give 
opportunity and hope to treason, yet I 
would not have our thought and purpose 
diverted from their true object, — the 
maintenance of the idea of Government. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



277 



We are not merely suppressing an enor- 
mous riot, hut contending for the possibility 
of permanent order coexisting with demo- 
cratical fickleness ; and while I would not 
superstitiously venerate form to the sacri- 
fice of substance, neither would I forget 
that an adherence to precedent and pre- 
scription can alone give that continuity 
and coherence under a democratical consti- 
tution which are inherent in the person of 
a despotick monarch and the selfishness of 
an aristocratical class. Stet pro ratione 
voluntas is as dangerous in a majority as 
in a tyrant. 

I cannot allow the present production of 
my young friend to go out without a pro- 
test from me against a certain extremeness 
in his views, more pardonable in the poet 
than the philosopher. While I agree with 
him, that the only cure for rebellion is 
suppression by force, yet I must animad- 
vert upon certain phrases where I seem to 
see a coincidence with a popular fallacy on 
the subject of compromise. On the one 
hand there are those who do not see that 
the vital principle of Government and the 
seminal principle of Law cannot properly 
be made a subject of compromise at all, 
and on the other those who are equally 
blind to the truth that without a com- 
promise of individual opinions, interests, 
and even rights, no society would be pos- 
sible. In medio tviissimus. For my own 
part, I would gladly 



Ef I a song or two could make 

Like rockets druv by their own 
burnin', 
All leap an' light, to leave a wake 
Men's hearts an' faces skyward 
turn in' ! — 
But, it strikes me, 't ain't jest the time 
Fer stringin' words with settisfaction : 
Wut 's wanted now 's the silent rhyme 
'Twixt upright Will an' downright 
Action. 

Words, ef you keep 'em, pay their keep, 

But gabble 's the short cut to ruin ; 
It 's gratis, (gals half-price,) but cheap 

At no rate, ef it henders doin' ; 
Ther' 's nothin' wuss, 'less 't is to set 

A martyr-prem'um upon jawrin' : 
Teapots git dangerous, ef you shet 

Their lids down en 'em with Fort 
Warren. 

r Bout long enough it 's ben discussed 
Who sot the magazine afire, 



An' whether, ef Bob Wickliffe bust, 
'T would scare us more or blow us 
higher. 

D' ye s'pose the Gret Foreseer's plan 
Wuz settled fer him in town-meetin' ? 

Or thet ther' 'd ben no Fall o' Man, 
Ef Adam 'd on'y bit a sweetin' ? 

Oh, Jon 'than, ef you want to be 

A rugged chap agin an' hearty, 
Go fer wutever '11 hurt Jeff D., 

Nut wut '11 boost up ary party. 
Here 's hell broke loose, an' we lay flat 

With half the univarse a-singein', 
Till Sen'tor This an' Gov'nor Thet 

Stop squabblin' fer the garding-ingin. 

It's war we 're in, not politics ; 

It 's systems wrastlin' now, not parties ; 
An' victory in the eend '11 fix 

Where longest will an' truest heart is. 
An' wut 's the Guv'ment folks about ? 

Tryin' to hope ther' 's nothin' doin', 
An' look ez though they did n't doubt 

Sunthin' pertickler wuz a-brewin'. 

Ther' 's critters yit thet talk an' act 

Fer wut they call Conciliation ; 
They 'd hand a buff'lo-drove a tract 

When they wuz madder than all 
Bashan. 
Conciliate ? it jest means be kicked, 

No metter how they phrase an' tone it ; 
It means thet we 're to set down licked, 

Thet we 're poor shotes an' glad to 
own it ! 

A war on tick 's ez dear 'z the deuce, 

But it wun't leave no lastin' traces, 
Ez 't would to make a sneakin' truce 

Without no moral specie-basis : 
Ef green -backs ain't nut jest the cheese, 

1 guess ther' 's evils thet's extremer, — 
Fer instance, — shin plaster idees 

Like them put out by Gov'nor Sey- 
mour. 

Last year, the Nation, at a word, 

Wheu tremblin' Freedom cried to 
shield her, 

Flamed weldin' into one keen sword 
Waitin' an' longin' fer a wielder : 

A splendid flash ! — but how 'd the grasp 
With sech a chance ez thet wuz tally ? 

Ther' warn't no meanin' in our clasp, ■ — 

. Half this, half thet, all shilly-shally. 



278 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



More men ? More Man ! It 's there we 
fail ; 
Weak plans grow weaker yit by 
lengthenin' : 
Wut use in addin' to the tail, 

When it 's the head 's in need o' 
strengthenin' ? 
We wanted one thet felt all Chief 

From roots o' hair to sole o' stockin', 
Square-sot with thousan'-ton belief 
In him an' us, ef earth went rockin' ! 

Ole Hick'ry would n't ha' stood see-saw 

'Bout doin' things till they wuz done 
with, — 
He 'd smashed the tables o' the Law 

In time o' need to load his gun with ; 
He could n't see but jest one side, — 

Ef his, 't wuz God's, an' thet wuz 
plenty ; . 
An* so his " Forrarcls /" multiplied 

An army's fightin' weight by twenty. 

But this 'ere histin', creak, creak, creak, 

Your cappen's heart up with a derrick, 
This tryin' to coax a lightnin'-streak 

Out of a half-discouraged hay-rick, 
This hangin' on mont' arter mont' 

Fer one sharp purpose 'mongst the 
twitter, — 
1 tell ye, it doos kind o' stunt 

The peth and sperit of a critter. 

In six months where '11 the People be, 

Ef leaders look on revolution 
Ez though it wuz a cup o' tea, — 

Jest social el'ments in solution ? 
This weighin' things doos wal enough 

When war cools down, an' comes to 
writin' ; 
But while it 's makin', the true stuff 

Is pison-mad, pig-headed fightin'. 

Democ'acy gives every man 

The right to be his own oppressor ; 
But a loose Gov'ment ain't the plan, 

Helpless ez spilled beans on a dresser : 
I tell ye one thing we might larn 

From them smart critters, the Seced- 
ers, — 
Ef bein' right 's the fust consarn, 

The 'fore-the-fust 's cast-iron leaders. 

But 'pears to me I see some signs 
Thet we 're a-goin' to use our senses : 



Jeff druv us into these hard lines, 
An' ough' to bear his half th' ex- 
penses ; 
Slavery 's Secession's heart an' will, 
South, North, East, West, where'er 
you find it, 
An' ef it drors into War's mill, 

D' ye say them thunder-stones sha' n't 
grind it ? 

D' ye s'pose, ef Jeff giv him a lick, 

Ole Hick'ry 'd tried his head to sof'n 
So 's 't would n't hurt thet ebony stick 

Thet 's made our side see stars so of 'n ? 
" No ! " he 'd ha' thundered, "On your 
knees, 

An' own one flag, one road to glory ! 
Soft-heartedness, in times like these, 

Shows sof'ness in the upper story ! " 

An' why should we kick up a muss 

About the Pres'dunt's proclamation? 
It ain't a-goin' to lib'rate us, 

Ef we don't like emancipation : 
The right to be a cussed fool 

Is safe from all devices human, 
It 's common (ez a gin'l rule) 

To every critter born o' woman. 

So we 're all right, an' I, fer one, 

Don't think our cause '11 lose in vally 
By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, 

An' gittin' Natur' fer an ally : 
Thank God, say I, fer even a plan 

To lift one human bein's level, 
Give one more chance to make a man, 

Or, anyhow, to spile a devil ! 

Not thet I 'm one thet much expec' 

Millennium by express to-morrer ; 
They will miscarry, — I rec'lec' 

Tu many on 'em, to my sorrer : 
Men ain't made angels in a day, 

No matter how you mould an' labor 
'em, — 
Nor 'riginal ones, I guess, don't stay 

With Abe so of n ez with Abraham. 

The'ry thinks Fact a pooty thing, 

An' wants the banns read right en- 
suin' ; 
But fact wun't noways wear the ring, 

'Thout years o' settin' up an' wooin' : 
Though, arter all, Time's dial -plate 

Marks cent'ries with the minute-fin- 
ger, 
An' Good can't never come tu late, 

Though it doos seem to try an' linger. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



279 



An' come wut will, 1 think it *s grand 

Abe 's gut his will et last bloom-fur- 
naced 
In trial -flames till it '11 stand 

The strain o' bein' in deadly earnest: 
Thet 's wut we want, — we want to 
know 

The folks on our side hez the bravery 
To b'lieve ez hard, come weal, come woe, 

In Freedom ez Jeff doos in Slavery. 

Set the two forces foot to foot, 

An' every man knows who '11 be win- 
ner, 
Whose faith in God hez ary root 

Thet goes down deeper than his din- 
ner : 
Then 't will be felt from pole to pole, 

Without no need o' proclamation, 
Earth's biggest Country 's gut her soul 

An' risen up Earth's Greatest Nation ! 



No. VIII. 

KETTELOPOTOMACHIA. 

PRELIMINARY NOTE. 

In the month of February, 1866, the 
editors of the "Atlantic Monthly" re- 
ceived from the Rev. Mr. Hitchcock of 
Jaalam a letter enclosing the macaronic 
verses which follow, and promising to send 
more, if more should be communicated. 
" They were rapped out on the evening of 
Thursday last past," he says, "by what 
claimed to be the spirit of my late prede- 
cessor in the ministry here, the Rev. Dr. 
Wilbur, through the medium of a young 
man at present domiciled in my family. 
As to the possibility of such spiritual 
manifestations, or whether they be prop- 
erly so entitled, I express no opinion, as 
there is a division of sentiment on that 
subject in the parish, and many persons 
of the highest respectability in social stand- 
ing entertain opposing views. The young 
man who was improved as a medium sub- 
mitted himself to the experiment with 
manifest reluctance, and is still unprepared 
to believe in the authenticity of the mani- 
festations. During his residence with me 
his deportment has always been exemplary ; 
he has been constant in his attendance 
upon our family devotions and the public 
ministrations of the Word, and has more 
than once privately stated to me, that the 
latter had often brought him under deep 
concern of mind. The table is an ordinary 



quadrupedal one, weighing about thirty 
pounds, three feet seven inches and a half 
in height, four feet square on the top, and 
of beech or maple, I am not definitely pre- 
pared to say which. It had once belonged 
to my respected predecessor, and had been, 
so far as I can learn upon careful inquiry, 
of perfectly regular and correct habits up 
to the evening in question. On that occa- 
sion the young man previously alluded to 
had been sitting with his hands resting 
carelessly upon it, while I read over to him 
at his request certain portions of my last 
Sabbath's discourse. On a sudden the rap- 
pings, as they are called, commenced to 
render themselves audible, at first faintly, 
but in process of time more distinctly and 
with violent agitation of the table. The 
young man expressed himself both sur- 
prised and pained by the wholly unex- 
pected, and, so far as he was concerned, 
unprecedented occurrence. At the earnest 
solicitation, however, of several who hap- 
pened to be present, he consented to go on 
with the experiment, and with the assist- 
ance of the alphabet commonly employed 
in similar emergencies, the following com- 
munication was obtained and written down 
immediately by myself. Whether any, 
and if so, how much weight should be at- 
tached to it, I venture no decision. That 
Dr. Wilbur had sometimes employed his 
leisure in Latin versification I have ascer- 
tained to be the case, though all that has 
been discovered of that nature among his 
papers consists of some fragmentary pas- 
sages of a version into hexameters of por- 
tions of the Song of Solomon. These I had 
communicated about a week or ten days 
previous [ly] to the young gentleman who 
officiated as medium in the communica- 
tion afterwards received. I have thus, I be- 
lieve, stated all the material facts that have 
any elucidative bearing upon this myste- 
rious occurrence." 

So far Mr. Hitchcock, who seems per- 
fectly master of Webster's unabridged 
quarto, and whose flowing style leads him 
into certain further expatiations for which 
we have not room. We have since learned 
that the young man he speaks of was a 
sophomore, put under his care during a 

sentence of rustication from College, 

where he had distinguished himself rather 
by physical experiments on the compara- 
tive power of resistance in window-glass 
to various solid substances, than in the 
more regular studies of the place. In an- 
swer to a letter of inquiry, the professor of 
Latin says, "There was no harm in the 
boy that I know of beyond his loving mis- 
chief more than Latin, nor can I think of 
any spirits likely to possess him except 



280 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



those commonly called animal. He was ' 
certainly not remarkable for his Latinity, 
but I see nothing in the verses yon enclose 
that would lead me to think them beyond 
his capacity, or the result of any special 
inspiration whether of beech or maple. 
Had that of birch been tried upon him ear- 
lier and more faithfully, the verses would 
perhaps have been better in quality and 
certainly in quantity." This exact and 
thorough scholar then goes on to point out 
many false quantities and barbarisms. It 
is but fair to say, however, that the author, 
whoever he was, seems not to have been 
unaware of some of them himself, as is 
shown by a great many notes appended to 
the verses as we received them, and pur- 
porting to be by Scaliger, Bentley and 
others, — among them the Esprit de Vol- 
taire ! These we have omitted as clearly 
meant to be humorous and altogether fail- 
ing therein. 

Though entirely satisfied that the verses 
are altogether unworthy of Mr. Wilbur, 
who seems to have been a tolerable Latin 
scholar after the fashion of his day, yet we 
have determined to print them here partly 
as belonging to the res gestce of this collec- 
tion, and partly as a warning to their pu- 
tative author which may keep him from 
such indecorous pranks for the future. 



KETTELOPOTOMACHIA. 

P. Ovidii Nasonis carmen heroicum maca- 
ronicum j>erplexametrum, inter Getas getico 
more compostum, denuo per medium arden- 
tispiritualem, adjuvante mensa diabolice ob- 
sessa, recuperatum, c unique Jo. Conradi 
Schwarzii umbrae, aliis necnon plurimis adju- 
vantibus, restitutum. 

LIBER I. 

Punctortjm garretos colens et cellara 

Quinque, 
Gutteribus qua? et gaudes Sunday am 

abstingere frontem, 
Plerumque insidos solita fluitare liquore 
Tanglepedem quem homines appellant 

Di quoque rotgut, 
Pimpliidis, rubicundaque, Musa, 0, 

bourbonolensque, 5 

Fenianas rixas procul, alma, brogipo- 

tentis 
Patricii cyathos iterantis et horrida 

bella, 
Backos dum virides viridis Brigitta re- ! 

mittit, i 



Linquens, eximios celebrem, da, Vir- 

ginienses 
Rowdes, preecipue et Te, heros alte, 

Polarde ! 10 

Insignes juvenesque, illo certamine 

lictos, 
Colemane, Tylere, nee vos oblivione 

relinquam. 

Ampla aquil?e invictse fausto est sub 

tegmine terra, 
Backyfer, ooiskeo pollens, ebenoque 

bipede, 
Socors pnesidum et altrix (denique 

quidruminantium), 15 

Duplefveorum uberrima ; illis et integre 

cordi est 
Deplere assidue et sine proprio incom- 

modo fiscum ; 
Nunc etiam placidum hoc opus in- 

victique secuti, 
Goosam aureos ni eggos voluissent im- 

mo necare 
Qure peperit, saltern ac de illis meliora 

merentem. 20 

Condidit hanc Smithius Dux, Cap- 

tinus inclytus ille 
Regis Ulyssse instar, docti arcum in- 

tendere longum ; 
Condidit ille Johnsmith, Virginiamque 

vocavit, 
Settledit autem Jacobus rex, nomine 

primus, 
Rascalis implens ruptis, blagardisque 

deboshtis, 25 

Militibusque ex Falstaffi legione fuga- 

tis 
Wenchisque illi quas poterant seducere 

nuptas ; 
Yirgineum, ah, littus matronis talibus 

impar ! 
Progeniem stirpe ex hoc non sine stig- 

mate ducunt 
Multi sese qui jactant regum esse ne- 

potes : 30 

Haud omnes, Mater, genitos qu?e nuper 

habebas 
Bello fortes, consilio cautos, virtute 

decoros, 
Jamque et habes, sparso si patrio in 

sanguine virtus, 
Moetrabisque iterum, antiquis sub astris 

reducta ! 
De illis qui upkikitant, dicebam, rum- 

pora tanta, 35 

Letcheris et Floydis magnisque Extra 

ordine Billis ; 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



281 



Est his prisca fides jurare et breakere 

wordum ; 
Poppere fellerum a tergo, aut stick ere 

clam bowiknifo, 
Hand sane facinus, dignum sed vietrice 

lauro ; 
Larrupere et nigerura, factum praestan- 

tius ullo : 40 

Ast chlamydem piciplumatam, Icariam, 

flito et ineptam, 
Yanko gratis induere, ilium et valido 

railo 
Insuper acri equitare docere est hospitio 

uti. 
Nescio an ille Polardus duplefveoribus 

ortus, 
Sed reputo potius de radice poorwite- 

manorum ; 45 

Fortuiti proles, ni fallor, Tylerus erat 
Prsesidis, omnibus ab Whiggis nominatus 

a poor cuss ; 
Et nobilem tertium evincit venerabile 

nomen. 
Ast animosi omnes bellique ad tympana 

ha ! ha ! 
Vociferant Iseti, procul et si prcelia, 

sive 50 

Hostem incautum atsito possunt shoot- 

ere salvi ; 
Imperiique capaces, esset si stylus 

agmen, 
Pro dulci spoliabant et sine dangere fito. 
Prae ceterisque Polardus : si Secessia 

licta, 
Se nunquam licturum jurat, res et un- 

heardof, 55 

Yerbo haesit, similisque audaci roost eri 

invicto, 
Dunghilli solitus rex pullos whoppere 

molles, 
Grantum, hirelingos stripes quique et 

splendida tollunt 
Sidera, et Yankos, territum et omnem 

sarsuit orbem. 
Usque dabant operam isti omnes, 

noctesque diesque, 60 

Samuelem demulgere avunculum, id 

vero siccum ; 
Uberibus sed ejus, et horum est culpa, 

remotis, 
Parvam domi vaccam, nee mora minima, 

quaerunt, 
Lacticarentem autem et droppam vix 

in die dantem ; 
Reddite avunculi, et exclamabant, red- 

dite pappam ! 65 



Polko ut consule, gemens, Billy im- 

murmurat Extra ; 
Echo respondit, thesauro ex vacuo, pap- 
pam ! 
Frustra explorant pocketa, ruber nare 

repertum ; 
Officia expulsi aspiciunt rapta, et Para- 

disum 
Occlusum, viridesque haud illis nascere 

backos ; 70 

Stupent tunc ocrdis madidis spittantque 

silenter. 
Adhibere usu ast longo vires prorsus 

inepti, 
Si non ut qui grindeat axve trabemve 

reuolvat, 
Yirginiam excruciant totis nunc might - 

ibu' matrem ; 
Non melius, puta, nono pahis dimid- 

iumne est ? 75 

Readere ibi non posse est casus com- 
moner ullo ; 
Tanto intentius imprimere est opus ergo 

statuta ; 
Nemo propterea pejor, melior, sine 

doubto, 
Obtineat qui contractum, si et postea 

rhino ; 
Ergo Polardus, si quis, inexsuperabilis 

heros, 80 

Colemanus impavidus nondum, atque 

in purpure natus 
Tylerus Iohanides celerisque in flito 

Nathaniel, 
Quisque optans digitos in tantum stick- 
er e pium, 
Adstant accincti imprimere aut perrum- 

pere leges : 
Quales os miserum rabidi tres segre 

molossi, S5 

Quales aut dubium textum atra in veste 

ministri, 
Tales circumstabant nunc nostri inopes 

hoc job. 
Hisque Polardus voce canoro talia 

fatus : 
Primum autem, veluti est mos, prseceps 

quisque liquorat, 
Quisque et Nicotianum ingens quid 

inserit atrum, 90 

Heroum nitidum decus et solamen avi- 

tum, 
Masticat ac simul altisonans, spittatcpie 

profuse : 
Quis de Virginia meruit prrestantius 

unquam ? 
Quis se pro patria curavit impigre tutum ? 



282 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Speechisque articulisque hominum quis 

fortior ullus, 95 

Ingeminans pennae lickos et vulnera 

vocis ? 
Quisnam putidius (hie) sarsuit Yanki- 

nimicos, 
Ssepius aut deditultro datam et broke 

his parolam ? 
Mente inquassatus solidaque, tyranno 

minante, 
Horrisonis (hie) bombis mcenia et alta 

quatente, 100 

Sese promptum (hie) jactans Yankos 

lickere centum, 
Atque ad lastum invictus non surrendi- 

dit unquam ? 
Ergo haud meddlite, poseo, mique re- 

linquite (hie) hoc job, 
Si non — knifumque enormem mostrat 

spittatque tremendus. 
Dixerat : ast alii reliquorant et sine 

pauso 105 

Pluggos incumbunt maxillis, uterque 

vicissim 
Certamine innocuo valde madidam m- 

quinat assem : 
Tylerus autem, dumque liquorat aridns 

hostis, 
Mirum aspicit duplumque bibentem, 

astante Lyaeo ; 
Ardens impavidusque edidit tamen im- 

pia verba ; 110 

Duplum quamvis te aspicio, esses atque 

viginti, 
Mendacem dicerem totumque (hie) 

thrasherem acervnm ; 
Nempe et thrasham, doggonatus (hie) 

sim nisi faxem ; 
Lambastabo omnes catawoinpositer-(hic) 

que chawam ! 
Dixit et impulsus Ryeo ruitur bene ti- 

tus, 115 

llli nam gravidum caput et laterem 

habet in hatto. 
Hunc inhiat titubansque Polardus, 

optat et ilium 
Stickere inermem, protegit autem rite 

Lyseus, 
Et pronos geminos, oculis dubitantibus, 

heros 
Cernit et irritus hostes, dumque excogi- 

tat utrum 120 

Primum inpitchere, corruit, inter utros- 

que recumbit, 
Magno asino similis nimio sub pondere 

quassus : 



Colemanus hos mcestus, triste ruminans- 

que solamen, 
Inspicit hiccans, circumspittat terque 

cubantes ; 
Funereisque his ritibus humidis inde 

solutis, j 25 

Sternitur, invalidusque illis superincidit 

infans ; 
Hos sepelit somnus et snorunt corniso- 

nantes, 
Watchmanus inscios ast calybooso deinde 

leponit. 

No. IX. 

[The Editors of the " Atlantic" have 
received so many letters of inquiry con- 
cerning the literary remains of the late Mr. 
Wilbur, mentioned by his colleague and 
successor, Rev. Jeduthan Hitchcock, in a 
communication from which we made some 
extracts in our number for February, 1863, 
and have been so repeatedly urged to print 
some part of them for the gratification of 
the public, that they felt it their duty at 
least to make some effort to satisfy so ur- 
gent a demand. They have accordingly 
carefully examined the papers intrusted to 
them, but find most of the productions of 
Mr. Wilbur's pen so fragmentary, and even 
chaotic, written as they are on the backs 
of letters in an exceedingly cramped chi- 
rography, — here a memorandum for a ser- 
mon ; there an observation of the weather ; 
now the measurement of an extraordinary 
head of cabbage, and then of the cerebral 
capacity of some reverend brother deceased ; 
a calm inquiry into the state of modern 
literature, ending in a method of detecting 
if milk be impoverished with water, and 
the amount thereof , one leaf beginning 
with a genealogy, to be interrupted half- 
way down with an entry that the brindle 
cow had calved, — that any attempts at 
selection seemed desperate. His only com- 
plete work, " An Enquiry concerning the 
Tenth Horn of the Beast," even in the ab- 
stract of it given by Mr. Hitchcock, would, 
by a rough computation of the printers, 
fill five entire numbers of our journal, and 
as he attempts, by a new application of 
decimal fractions, to identify it with the 
Emperor Julian, seems hardly of immedi- 
ate concern to the general reader. Even 
the Table-Talk, though doubtless origi- 
nally highly interesting in the domestic 
circle, is so largely made up of theological 
discussion and matters of local or preterite 
interest, that we have found it hard to ex- 
tract anything that would at all satisfy 
expectation. But, in order to silence fur- 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



283 



ther inquiry, we subjoin a few passages as 
illustrations of its general character. ] 

I think I could go near to be a perfect 
Christian if I were always a visitor, as I 
have sometimes been, at the house of some 
hospitable friend. I can show a great deal 
of self-denial where the best of every thing- 
is urged upon me with kindly importunity. 
It is not so very hard to turn the other 
cheek for a kiss. And when I meditate 
upon the pains taken for our entertain- 
ment in this life, on the endless variety of 
seasons, of human character and fortune, 
on the costliness of the hangings and fur- 
niture of our dwelling here, I sometimes 
feel a singular joy in looking upon myself 
as God's guest, and cannot but believe that 
we should all be wiser and happier, be- 
cause more grateful, if we were always 
mindful of our privilege in this regard. 
And should we not rate more cheaply any 
honor that men could pay us, if we remem- 
bered that every day we sat at the table of 
the Great King ? Yet must we not forget 
that we are in strictest bonds His servants 
also ; for there is no impiety so abject as 
that which expects to be dead-headed (ut 
ita dicam) through life, and which, calling 
itself trust m Providence, is in reality ask- 
ing Providence to trust us and taking up 
all our goods, on false pretences. It is a 
wise rule to take the world as we find it, 
not always to leave it so. 

It has often set me thinking when I find 
that I can always pick up plenty of empty 
nuts under my shagb ark -tree. The squir- 
rels know them by their lightness, and I 
have seldom seen one with the marks of 
their teeth in it. What a school-house is 
the world, if our wits would only not play 
truant ! For I observe that men set most 
store by forms and symbols in proportion 
as they are mere shells. It is the outside 
they want and not the kernel. What stores 
of such do not many, who in material 
things are as shrewd as the squirrels, lay 
up for the spiritual winter supply of them- 
selves and their children ! 1 have seen 
churches that seemed to me garners of these 
withered nuts, for it is wonderful how pro- 
saic is the apprehension of symbols by the 
minds of most men. It is not one sect nor 
another, but all, who, like the dog of the 
fable, have let drop the spiritual substance 
of symbols for their material shadow. If 
one attribute miraculous virtues to mere 
holy water, that beautiful emblem of in- 
ward purification at the door of God's house, 
another cannot comprehend the significance 
of baptism without being ducked over head 
and ears in the liquid vehicle thereof. 



[Perhaps a word of historical comment 
may be permitted here. My late revered 
predecessor was, I would humbly affirm, 
as free from prejudice as falls to the lot of 
the most highly favored individuals of our 
species. To be sure, I have heard him say 
that, "what were called strong prejudices, 
were in fact only the repulsion of sensitive 
organizations from that moral and even 
physical effluvium, through which some 
natures by providential appointment, like 
certain unsavory quadrupeds, gave warn- 
ing of their neighborhood. Better ten 
mistaken suspicions of this kind than one 
close encounter." This he said somewhat 
in heat, on being questioned as to his mo- 
tives for always refusing his pulpit to those 
itinerant professors of vicarious benevo- 
lence who end their discourses by taking 
up a collection. But at another time I 
remember his saying, "that there was one 
large thing which small minds always found 
room for, and that was great prejudices." 
This, however, by the way. The state- 
ment which I purposed to make was simply 
this. Down to a. d. 1830, Jaalam had 
consisted of a single parish, with one house 
set apart for religious services. In that 
year the foundations of a Baptist Society 
were laid by the labors of Elder Joash Q. 
Balcom, 2d. As the members of the new 
body were drawn from the First Parish, 
Mr. Wilbur was for a time considerably 
exercised in mind. He even went so far 
as on one occasion to follow the reprehen- 
sible practice of the earlier Puritan divines 
in choosing a punning text, and preached 
from Hebrews xiii. 9: "Be not carried 
about with divers and strange doctrines." 
He afterwards, in accordance with one of 
his own maxims, — " to get a dead injury 
out of the mind as soon as is decent, bury 
it, and then ventilate," — in accordance 
with this maxim, I say, he lived on very 
friendly terms with Rev. Shearjashub 
Scrimgour, present pastor of the Baptist 
Society in Jaalam. Yet I think it was 
never unpleasing to him that the church 
edifice of that society (though otherwise a 
creditable specimen of architecture) re- 
mained without a bell, as indeed it does to 
this day. So much seemed necessary to 
do away with any appearance of acerbity 
toward a respectable community of pro- 
fessing Christians, which might be sus- 
pected in the conclusion of the above para- 
graph. — J. H.] 

In lighter moods he was not averse from 
an innocent play upon words. Looking 
up from his newspaper one morning as I 
entered his study he said, "When I read 
a debate in Congress, I feel as if I were 



284 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



sitting at the feet of Zeno in the shadow 
of the Portico." On my expressing a nat- 
ural surprise, he added, smiling, "Why, 
at such times the only view which honora- 
ble members give me of what goes on in 
the world is through their intercalumnia- 
tions." I smiled at this after a moment's 
reflection, and he added gravely, "The 
most punctilious refinement of manners is 
the only salt that will keep a democracy 
from stinking ; and what are we to expect 
from the people, if their representatives 
set them such lessons? Mr. Everett's 
whole life has been a sermon from this 
text. There was, at least, this advantage 
in duelling, that it set a certain limit on 
the tongue." In this connection, I may 
be permitted to recall a playful remark of 
his upon another occasion. The painful 
divisions in the First Parish, a. d. 1844, 
occasioned by the wild notions in respect 
to the rights of (what Mr. Wilbur, so far 
as concerned the reasoning faculty, always 
called) the unfairer part of creation, put 
forth by Miss Parthenia Almira Fitz, are 
too well known to need more than a pass- 
ing allusion. It was during these heats, 
long since happily allayed, that Mr. Wil- 
bur remarked that " the Church had more 
trouble in dealing with one s&eresiarch 
than with twenty Aeresiarchs," and that 
the men's conscia recti, or certainty of be- 
ing right, was nothing to the women's. 

When I once asked his opinion of a po- 
etical composition on which I had expended 
no little pains, he read it attentively, and 
then remarked, "Unless one's thought pack 
more neatly in verse than in prose, it is 
wiser to refrain. Commonplace gains noth- 
ing by being translated into rhyme, for it 
is something which no hocus-pocus can 
transubstantiate with the real presence of 
living thought. You entitle your piece, 
1 My Mother's Grave,' and expend four 
pages of useful paper in detailing your 
emotions there. But, my dear sir, water- 
ing does not improve the quality of ink, 
even though you should do it with tears. 
To publish a sorrow to Tom, Dick, and 
Harry is in some sort to advertise its unre- 
ality, for I have observed in my intercourse 
with the afflicted that the deepest grief in- 
stinctively hides its face with its hands 
and is silent. If your piece were printed, 
I have no doubt it would be popular, for 
people like to fancy that they feel much 
better than the trouble of feeling. I would 
put all poets on oath whether they have 
striven to say everything they possibly 
could think of, or to leave out all they 
could not help saying. In your own case, 
my worthy young friend, what you have 



written is merely a deliberate exercise, the 
gymnastic of sentiment. For your excel- 
lent maternal relative is still alive, and is 
to take tea with me this evening, D. V. Be- 
ware of simulated feeling ; it is hypocrisy's 
first cousin ; it is especially dangerous to 
a preacher ; for he who says one day, ' Go 
to, let me seem to be pathetic,' may be 
nearer than he thinks to saying, ' Go to, 
let me seem to be virtuous, or earnest, or 
under sorrow for sin.' Depend upon it, 
Sappho loved her verses more sincerely than 
she did Phaon, and Petrarch his sonnets 
better than Laura, who was indeed but his 
poetical stalking-horse. After you shall 
have once heard that muffled rattle of the 
clods on the coffin-lid of an irreparable loss, 
you will grow acquainted with a pathos 
that will make all elegies hateful. When 
I was of your age", I also for a time mistook 
my desire to write verses for an authentic 
call of my nature in that direction. But 
one day as I was going forth for a walk, 
with my head full of an ' Elegy on the 
Death of Flirtilla,' and vainly groping after 
a rhyme for lily that should not be silly or 
chilly, I saw my eldest boy Homer busy 
over the rain-water hogshead, in that child- 
ish experiment at parthenogenesis, the 
changing a horse-hair into a water-snake. 
An immersion of six weeks showed no 
change in the obstinate filament. Here 
was a stroke of unintended sarcasm. Had 
I not been doing in my study precisely 
what my boy was doing out of doors ? 
Had my thoivghts any more chance of com- 
ing to iife by being submerged in rhyme 
than his hair by soaking in water ? I 
burned my elegy and took a course of Ed- 
wards on the Will. People do not make 
poetry ; it is made out of them by a pro- 
cess for which I do not find myself fitted. 
Nevertheless, the writing of verses is a 
good rhetorical exercitation, as teaching us 
what to shun most carefully in prose. For 
prose bewitched is like window-glass with 
bubbles in it, distorting what it should 
show with pellucid veracity." 

It is unwise to insist on doctrinal points 
as vital to religion. The Bread of Life 
is wholesome and sufficing in itself, but 
gulped down with these kick-shaws cooked 
up by theologians, it is apt to produce an 
indigestion, nay, even at last an incurable 
dyspepsia of scepticism. 

One of the most inexcusable weaknesses 
of Americans is in signing their names to 
what are called credentials. But for my 
interposition, a person Avho shall be name- 
less would have taken from this town a 
recommendation for an office of trust sub- 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



285 



scribed by the selectmen and all the voters 
of both parties, ascribing to him as many 
good qualities as if it had been his tomb- 
stone. The excuse was that it would be 
well for the town to be rid of him, as it 
would erelong be obliged to maintain him. 
I would not refuse my name to modest 
merit, but I would be as cautious as in sign- 
ing a bond. [I trust I shall be subjected 
to no imputation of unbecoming vanity, 
if I mention the fact that Mr. W. indorsed 
my own qualifications as teacher of the 
high -school at Pequash Junction. J. H.] 
When I see a certificate of character with 
everybody's name to it, I regard it as a 
letter of introduction from the Devil. 
Never give a man your name unless you are 
willing to trust him with your reputation. 

There seem nowadays to be two sources 
of literary inspiration, — fulness of mind 
and emptiness of pocket. 

I am often struck, especially in reading 
Montaigne, with the obviousness and fa- 
miliarity of a great writer's thoughts, and 
the freshness they gain because said by 
him. The truth is, we mix their greatness 
with all they say and give it our best at- 
tention. Johannes Faber sic cogitavit, 
would be no enticing preface to a book, 
but an accredited name gives credit like 
the signature of a note of hand. It is the 
advantage of fame that it is always priv- 
ileged to take the world by the button, 
and a thing is weightier for Shakespeare's 
uttering it by the whole amount of his 
personality. 

It is singular how impatient men are 
with overpraise of others, how patient 
with overpraise of themselves ; and yet the 
one does them no injury, while the other 
may be their ruin. 

People are apt to confound mere alert- 
ness of mind with attention. The one is 
but the flying abroad of all the faculties 
to the open doors and windows at every 
passing rumor ; the other is the concen- 
tration of every one of them in a sin- 
gle focus, as in the alchemist over his 
alembic at the moment of expected pro- 
jection. Attention is the stuff that mem- 
ory is made of, and memory is accumu- 
lated genius. 

Do not look for the Millennium as im- 
minent. One generation is apt to get all 
the wear it can out of the cast clothes of 
the last, and is always sure to use up every 
paling of the old fence that will hold a nail 
in building the new. 



You suspect a kind of vanity in my 
genealogical enthusiasm. Perhaps you are 
right ; but it is a universal foible. Where it 
does not show itself in a personal and pri- 
vate way, it becomes public and gregarious. 
We flatter ourselves in the Pilgrim Fathers, 
and the Virginian offshoot of a transported 
convict swells with the fancy of a cavalier 
ancestry. Pride of birth, I have noticed, 
takes two forms. One complacently traces 
himself up to a coronet ; another, defiantly, 
to a lapstone. The sentiment is precisely 
the same in both cases, only that one is 
the positive and the other the negative 
pole of it. 

Seeing a goat the other day kneeling in 
order to graze with less trouble, it seemed 
to me a type of the common notion of 
prayer. Most people are ready enough to 
go down on their knees for material bless- 
ings, but how few for those spiritual gifts 
which alone are an answer to our orisons, 
if we but knew it ! 

Some people, nowadays, seem to have 
hit upon a new moralization of the moth 
and the candle. They would lock up the 
light of Truth, lest poor Psyche should 
put it out in her effort to draw nigh to it. 



No. X. 



MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR 
OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 

Dear Sir, — Your letter come to han' 

Kequestin' me to please be funny ; 
But I ain't made upon a plan 

Thet knows wut 's comin', gall or 
honey : 
Ther' 's times the world doos look so 
queer, 
Odd fancies come afore I call 'em ; 
An' then agin, for half a year, 

No preacher 'thout a call 's more 
solemn. 

You 're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, 

Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingle- 
ish, 
An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, 

I 'd take an' citify my English. 
I ken write long-tailed, ef I please, — 

But when I 'm jokin', no, I thankee ; 
Then, 'fore I know it, my idees 

Run helter-skelter into Yankee. 



286 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, 

1 tell ye wut, I hain't ben foolin' ; 
The parson's books, life, death, an' time 

Hev took some trouble with my 
sehoolin' ; 
Nor th' airth don't git put out with me, 

Thet love her 'z though she wuz a 
woman ; 
Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree 

But half forgives my bein' human. 

An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way 

01' farmers hed when I wuz younger ; 
Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, 
While book -froth seems to whet your 
hunger ; 
For puttin' in a downright lick 

'twixt Humbug's eyes, trier' 's few 
can metch it, 
An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick 
Ez stret-grained hickory doos a 
hetchet. 

But when I can't, I can't, thet 's all, 
' For Natur' won't put up with gullin' ; 
Idees you hev to shove an' haul 

Like a druv pig ain't wuth a mullein : 
Live thoughts ain't sent for ; thru all 
rifts 
0' sense they pour an' resh ye on- 
wards, 
Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts 
Feel thet th' old airth 's a-wheelin' 
sunwards. 

Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' 
thick 
Ez office-seekers arter 'lection, 
An' into ary place 'ould stick 

Without no bother nor objection ; 
But sence the war my thoughts hang 
back 
Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em, 
An' subs' tutes, — they don't never lack, 
But then they '11 slope afore you 've 
mist 'em. 

Nothin' don't seem like wut it wuz ; 

I can't see wut there is to hender, 
An' yit my brains jes' go buzz, buzz, 

Like bumblebees agin a winder ; 
'fore these times come, in all airth's 
row, 

Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in, 
Where I could hide an' think. — but 
now 

It's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'. 



Where 's Peace ? I start, some clear- 
blown night, 
When gaunt stone walls grow numb 
an' number, 
An', creakin" cross the snow- eras' white, 
Walk the col' starlight into summer ; 
Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell 
Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer 
Than the last smile thet strives to tell 
0' love gone heavenward in its shim- 
mer. 

I hev ben gladder o' sech things 

Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover, 
They filled my heart with livin' springs, 

But now they seem to freeze 'em over ; 
Sights innercent ez babes on knee, 

Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, 
Jes' coz they be so, seem to me 

To rile me more with thoughts o' 
battle. 

In-doors an' out by spells I try; 

Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel 
goin', 
But leaves my natur' stiff and dry 

Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin' ; 
An' her jes' keepin' on the same, 

Calmer 'n a clock, an' never carin', 
An' findin' nary thing to blame, 

Is wus than ef she took to swearin'. 

Snow-flakes come whisperin' on th« 
pane 
The charm makes blazin' logs so 
pleasant, 
But I can't hark to wut they 're say'n', 
With Grant or Sherman oilers pres- 
ent; 
The chimbleys shudder in the gale, 
Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flapv 
pin' 
Like a shot hawk, but all 's ez stale 
To me ez so much sperit-rappin'. 

Under the yaller-pines I house, 

When sunshine makes 'em all sweet, 
scented, 
An' hear among their furry boughs 
The baskin' west-wind purr com 
tented, 
While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low 

Ez distant bells thet ring for meeting 
The wedged wil' geese their bugles 
blow, 
Further an' further South retreatin'. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



287 



Or up the -slippery knob I strain 

An' see a hundred hills like islan's 
Lift their blue woods in broken chain 

Out o' the sea o' snowy silence ; 
The farm -smokes, sweetes' sight on 
airth, 

Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin' 
Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth 

Of empty places set me thinkin'. 

Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows, 

An' rattles di'mon's from his granite ; 
Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, 

An' into psalms or satires ran it ; 
But he, nor all the rest thet once 

Started my blood to country-dances, 
Can't set me goin' more 'n a dunce 

Thet hain't no use for dreams an' 
fancies. 

Eat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street 

I hear the drummers makin' riot, 
An' I set thinkin' o' the feet 

Thet follered once an' now are quiet, — 
White feet ez snowdrops innercent, 

Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, 
Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet 
won't, 

No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'. 

Why, hain't T held 'em on my knee ? 

Did n't I love to see 'em growin', 
Three likely lads ez wal could be, 

Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu 
knowin' ? 
I set an' look into the blaze 

Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps 
climbin', 
Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways, 

An' half despise myself for rhymin'. 

Wut 's words to them whose faith an' 
truth 

On War's red techstone rang true 
metal, 
Who ventered life an' love an' youth 

For the gret prize o' death in battle ? 
To him who, deadly hurt, agen 

Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, 
Tippin' with tire the bolt of men 

Thet rived the Rebel line asunder ? 

'T ain't right to hev the young go fust, 
All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces, 

Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust 

To try an' make b'lieve fill their 
places : 



Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, 

Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay 
in, 

An' thet world seems so fur from this 
Lef ' for us loafers to grow gray in ! 

My eyes cloud up for rain ; my mouth 

Will take to twitchin' roun' the cor- 
ners ; 
I pity mothers, tu, down South, 

For all they sot among the scorners : 
I 'd sooner take my chance to stan' 

At Jedgment where your meanest 
slave is, 
Than at God's bar hoi' up a han' 

Ez drippin' red ez yourn, Jeff Davis ! 

Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed 

For honor lost an' dear ones wasted, 
But proud, to meet a people proud, 

With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted ! 
Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt, 

An' step thet proves ye Victory's 
daughter ! 
Longin' for you, our sperits wilt 

Like shipwrecked men's on raf 's for 
water. 

Come, while our country feels the lift 

Of a gret instinct shoutin' forwards, 
An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift 

Thet tarries long in ban's o' cowards ! 
Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when 

They kissed their cross with lips thet 
quivered, 
An' bring fair wages for brave men, 

A nation saved, a race delivered ! 



No. XI. 

MR. HOSEA BIGLOWS SPEECH IN 
MARCH MEETING. 

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam, April 5, 1866. 
My dear Sir, — 

(an' noticin' by your kiver thet you 're 
some dearer than wut you wuz, I enclose 
the deffrence) I dunno ez I know jest how 
to interdroce this las' perduction of my 
mews, ez Parson Willber alius called 'em, 
which is goin' to be the last an' stay the 
last onless sunthin' pertikler sh'd interfear 
which I don't expec' ner I wun't yield tu 



288 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



ef it vniz ez pressin' ez a deppity ShirifF. 
Sence Mr. Wilbur's disease I hev n't he' I 
no one thet could dror out my talons. 
He ust to kind o' wine me up an' set the 
penderlum agoin' an' then somehow I 
seemed to go on tick as it wear tell I run 
down, but the noo minister ain't of the 
same brewin' nor I can't seem to git ahold 
of no kine of burning nater in him but sort 
of slide rite off as you du on the eedge of 
a mow. Minnysteeril natur is wal enough 
an' a site better 'n most other kines I 
know on, but the other sort sech as Wel- 
bor hed wuz of the Lord's makin' an' nat- 
erally more wonderfie an' sweet tastin' 
leastways to me so fur as heerd from. He 
used to inteidooee 'em smooth ez ile 
athout savin' nothin' hi pertickler an' I 
misdoubt he did n't set so much by the 
sec'nd Ceres as wut he done by the Fust, 
fact, he let on onct thet his mine misgive 
him of a sort of fallin' off in spots. He 
wuz as outspoken as a norwester he wuz, 
but 1 tole him I hoped the fall wuz from 
so high up thet a feller could ketch a good 
many times fust afore comin' bunt onto 
the ground as I see Jethro C. Swett from 
the meetin' house steeple up to th' old 
perrish, an' took up for dead but he 's 
alive now an' spry as wut you be. Turn- 
in' of it over 1 recclected how they ust to 
put wut they called Argynmnce onto the 
fronts of poynms, like poorches afore 
housen whare you could rest ye a spell 
whilst you wuz concludin' whether you 'd 
go in or nut espeshully ware tha wuz dar- 
ters, though 1 most alius found it the best 
plen to go in fust an' think afterwards an' 
the gals likes it best tu. 1 dno as speech is 
ever hez any argimunts to ! em, I never see 
none thet hed an' I guess they never du 
but tha must alius be a B giiinin' to every- 
thin' athout it is Etarnity so I '11 begin 
rite away an' anybody may put it afore 
any of his speeches ef it soots an' welcome. 
I don't claim no paytent. 

THE ARGYMUNT. 

Interducshin, w'ich may be skipt. Be- 
gins by talkin' about himself : thet 's jest 
natur an' most gin'ally alius pleasin', I 
b'leeve 1 Ve notist, to one of the cumpany, 
an' thet r s more than wut you can say of 
most speshes of talkin'. Nex' comes the 
gittin' the goodwill of the orjunce by let- 
tin' 'em gether from wut you kind of ex'- 
dentally let drop thet they air about East, 
A one, an' no mistaik, skare 'em up an' 
take 'em as they rise. Spring interdooced 
with a fiew approput flours. Speach 
finally begins witch nobuddy need n't feel 
obolygated to read as I never read 'em an' 



never shell this one ag'in. Subjick staited ; 
expanded ; delayted ; extended. Pump 
lively. Subjick staited ag'in so 's to avide 
all mistaiks. Ginnle remarks ; contin- 
ooed ; kerried on ; pushed furder ; kind o' 
gin out. Subjick re-staited; dielooted ; 
stirred up permiscoous. Pump ag'in. 
Gits back to where he sot out. Can't 
seem to stay thair. Ketches into Mr. Sea- 
ward's hair. Breaks loose ag'in an' staits 
his subjick; stretches it; turns it ; folds 
it ; outbids it ; folds it ag'in so 's 't no one 
can't find it. Argoos with an imedginary 
bean thet ain't aloud to say nothin' in re- 
pleye. Gives him a real good dressin' an' 
is settyshde he 's rite. Gits into Johnson's 
hair. No use tryin' to git into his head. 
Gives it up. Hez to stait his subjick 
ag'in ; doos it back'ards, sideways, eend- 
ways, criss-cross, bevellin', noways. Gits 
finally red on it. Concloods. Concloods 
more. Reads some xtrax. Sees his sub- 
jick a-nosin' round arter him ag'in. Tries 
to avide it. Won't du. il/zsstates it. 
Can't conjectur' no other plawsable way of 
staytin' on it. Tries pump. No fx. Fine- 
ly concloods to conclood Yeels the flore. 

You kin spall an' punctooate thet as 
you please. 1 alius do, it kind of puts a 
noo soot of close onto a word, thisere fun- 
attick spellin' doos an' takes 'em out of 
the prissen dress they wair in the Dixon- 
ary. Ef I squeeze the cents out of 'em 
it 's the mam thing, an' wut they wuz 
made for ; wut !s left 's jest pummis. 

Mistur Wilbur sez he to me onct, sez 
he, "Hosee," sez he, "in litterytoor the 
only good thing is Natur. It 's amazin' 
hard to come at," sez he, " but onct git it 
an' you 've gut every thin'. Wut 's the 
sweetest small on airth ? " sez he " Noo- 
mone hay," sez I, pooty bresk, for he wuz 
alius hankerin' round in hayin'. " Naw- 
thin' of the kine," sez he "My leetle 
Huldy's breath," sez I ag'in. "You 're 
a good lad," sez he, his eyes sort of ripplin' 
like, for he lost a babe onct nigh about 
her age, — "you're a good lad; but 't 
ain't thet nuther," sez he. "Ef you want 
to know," sez he, "open your winder of a 
mornin' et ary season, and you '11 larn 
thet the best of perfooms is jest fresh air, 
fresh air," sez he, emphysizin', "athout 
no mixtur. Thet 's wut / call natur in 
writin', and it bathes my lungs and washes 
'em sweet whenever I git a whiff on 't," 
sez he. I offen think o' thet when I set 
down to write, but the winders air so ept 
to git stuck, an' breakin' a pane costs 
sunthin'. 

Yourn for the last time, 

Nut to be continooed, 

Hose a Biglow. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



289 



I don't much s'pose, hows'ever I should 

plen it, 
I could git boosted into th' House or 

Sennit, — 
Nut while the twolegged gab-machine 's 

so plenty, 
'nablin' one man to du the talk o' 

twent} r ; 
I 'm one o' them thet finds it ruther 

hard 
To mannyfactur' wisdom by the yard, 
An' maysure off, accordin' to demand, 
The piece-goods el'kence that 1 keep on 

hand, 
The same ole pattern runnin' thru an' 

thru, 
An' nothin' but the customer thet 's 

new. 
I sometimes think, the furder on I go, 
Thet it gits harder to feel sure I know, 
An' when 1 've settled my idees, I find 
't warn't 1 sheered most in makin' up 

my mind ; 
't wuz this an' thet an' t' other thing 

thet done it, 
Sunthin' in th' air, I could n' seek nor 

shun it. 
Mos' folks go off so quick now in dis- 
cussion, 
All th' ole flint locks seems altered to 

percussion, 
Whilst I in agin' sometimes git a hint, 
Thet 1 'm percussion changm' back to 

flint ; 
Wal, ef it 's so, I ain't agoin' to werrit, 
For th' ole Queen's-armhez thispertickler 

merit, — 
It gives the mind a hahnsome w T edth o' 

margin 
To kin' o' make its will afore dischargin' : 
1 can't make out but jest one ginnle 

rule, — 
No man need go an' make himself a fool, 
Nor jedgment ain't like mutton, thet 

can't bear 
Cookin' tu long, nor be took up tu rare. 

Ez I wuz say'n', I hain't no chance to 
speak 

So 's 't all the country dreads me onct a 
week, 

But I 've consid'ble o' thet sort o' head 

Thet sets to home an' thinks wut might 
be said, 

The sense thet grows an' werrits under- 
neath, 

Comin' belated like your wisdom-teeth, 
19 



An' git so el'kent, sometimes, to my 

gardin 
Thet I don' vally public life a fardin'. 
Our Parson Wilbur (blessin's on his 

head !) 
'mongst other stories of ole times he hed, 
Talked of a feller thet rehearsed his 

spreads 
Beforehan' to his rows o' kebbige-heads, 
(Ef 't war n't Demossenes, I guess 't wuz 

Sisro,) 
Appealin' fust to thet an' then to this 

row, 
Accordin' ez he thought thet his idees 
Their diff'runt ev'riges o' brains 'ould 

please ; 
"An',"sez the Parson, "to hit right, 

you must 
Git used to maysurin' your hearers fust ; 
For, take my word for 't, when all 's 

come an' past, 
The kebbige-lieads '11 cair the day et 

last ; 
Th' ain't ben a meetin' sence the worl' 

begun 
But they made (raw or biled ones) ten 

to one." 

I 've alius form' 'em, I allow, sence then 
About ez good for talkin' to ez men ; 
They '11 take edvice, like other folks, to 

keep, 
(To use it 'ould be holdin' on 't tu 

cheap,) 
They listen wal, don' kick up when you 

scold 'em, 
An' ef they 've tongues, hev sense enough 

to hold 'em ; 
Though th' ain't no denger we shall lose 

the breed, 
I gin'lly keep a score or so for seed, 
An' when my sappiness gits spry in 

spring, 
So 's 't my tongue itches to run on full 

swing, 
I fin' 'em ready-planted in March- 

meetin', 
Warm ez a lyceum-audience in their 

greet in', 
An' pleased to hear my spoutin' frum 

the fence, — 
Comin', ez 't doos, entirely free 'f ex- 
pense. 
This year I made the follerin' observa- 
tions 
Extrump'ry, like most other tri'ls o' 

patience, 



290 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



An', no reporters bein' sent express 
To work their abstrac's up into a mess 
Ez like th' oridg'nal ez a woodcut pictur' 
Thet chokes the lite out like a boy-con- 
strictor, 
I 've writ 'em out, an' so avide all 

jeal'sies 
'twixt nonsense o' my own an' some 
one's else's. 

(N. B. Reporters gin'lly git a hint 

To make dull orjunces seem 'live in 

print, 
An', ez I hev t' report myself, I vum, 
1 '11 put th' applauses where they 'd 

ougK to come !) 

My feller kebbige-heads, who look 

so green, 
I vow to gracious thet ef I could dreen 
The world of all its hearers but jest you, 
't would leave 'bout all tha' is wuth 

talkin' to, 
An' you, my ven'able ol' frien's, thet show 
Upon your crowns a sprinklin' o' March 

snow, 
Ez ef mild Time had christened every 

sense 
For wisdom's church o' second innocence, 
Nut Age's winter, no, no sech a thing, 
But jest a kin' o' slippin'-back o' 

spring, — [Sev'ril noses bio wed. J 

We 've gathered here, ez ushle, to decide 
Which is the Lord's an' which is Satan's 

side, 
Coz all the good or evil thet can heppen 
Is 'long o' which on 'em you choose for 

Cappen. [Cries o' "Thet 's so ! "J 

Aprul 's come back ; the swellin' buds of 

oak 
Dim the fur hillsides with a purplish 

smoke ; 
The brooks are loose an', singing to be 

seen, 
(Like gals,) make all the hollers soft an' 

green ; 
The birds are here, for all the season 's 

late ; 
They take the sun's height an' don' 

never wait ; 
Soon 'z he officially declares it 's spring 
Their light hearts lift 'em on a north- 

'ard wing, 
An' th' ain't an acre, fur ez you can hear, 
Can't by the music tell the time o' year ; 
But thet white dove Cariiny scared away, 



Five year ago, jes' sech an Aprul day ; 
Peace, that we hoped 'ould come an 

build last year 
An' coo by every housedoor, is n't 

here, — 
No, nor wun't never be, for all our jaw, 
Till we ; re ez brave in pol'tics ez in war ! 
Lord, ef folks wuz made so 's 't they 

could see 
The begnet-pint there is to an idee ! 

[Sensation.] 
Ten times the danger in 'em th' is in 

steel ; 
They run your soul thru an' you never 

feel, 
But crawl about an' seem to think 

you 're livin', 
Poor shells o' men, nut wuth the Lord's 

forgivin', 
Till you come bunt ag'in a real live feet, 
An' go to pieces when you 'd ough' to 

ect ! 
Thet kin' o' begnet 's wut we 're crossin' 

now, 
An' no man, fit to nevvigate a scow, 
'ould stan' expectin' help from Kingdom 

Come, 
While t' other side druv their cold iron 

home. 

My frien's, you never gethered from my 

mouth, 
No, nut one word ag'in the South ez 

South, 
Nor th' ain't a livin' man, white, brown, 

nor black, 
Gladder 'n wut I should be to take 'em 

back ; 
But all I ask of Uncle Sam is fust 
To w r rite up on his door, ' ' No goods on 

trust " ; 

[Cries of " Thet 's the ticket ! "] 

Give us cash down in ekle laws for all, 
An' they '11 be snug inside afore nex' fall. 
Give wut they ask, an' we shell hev 

Jamaker, 
Wuth minus some consid'able an acre ; 
Give wut they need, an' we shell git 

'fore long 
A nation all one piece, rich, peacefle, 

strong ; 
Make 'em Amerikin, an' they '11 begin 
To love their country ez they loved their 

sin ; 
Let 'em stay Southun, an' you 've kep' 

a sore 
Ready to fester ez it done afore. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



291 



No mortle man can boast of pernc' vision, 
But the one moleblin' thing is Inde- 
cision, 
An' th' ain't no futur' for the man nor 

state 
Thet out of j-u-s-t can't spell great. 
Some folks 'ould call thet reddikle ; do 

you? 
'T was commonsense afore the war wuz 

thru ; 
Thet loaded all our guns an' made 'em 

speak 
So 's 't Europe heared 'em clearn acrost 

the creek ; 
"They're drivin' o' their spiles down 

now," sez she, 
* ' To the hard grennit o' God's fust 

idee ; 
Ef they reach thet, Democ'cy need n't 

fear 
The tallest airthquakes we can git up 

here." 
Some call 't insultin' to ask ary pledge, 
An' say 't will only set their teeth on 

edge, 
But folks you 've jest licked, fur 'z I 

ever see, 
Are 'bout ez mad 'z they wal know how 

to be ; 
It 's better than the Kebs themselves 

expected 
'fore they see Uncle Sam wilt down 

henpected ; 
Be kind 'z you please, but fustly make 

things fast, 
For plain Truth 's all the kindness thet 

11 last ; 
Ef treason is a crime, ez some folks say, 
How could we punish it a milder way 
Than sayin' to 'em, " Brethren, lookee 

here, 
"We '11 jes' divide things with ye, sheer 

an' sheer, 
An sence both come o' pooty strong- 
backed daddies, 
You take the Darkies, ez we 've took 

the Paddies ; 
Ign'ant an' poor we took 'em by the 

hand, 
An' they 're the bones an' sinners o' the 

land." 
I ain't o' them thet fancy there 's a loss 

on 
Every inves'ment thet don't start from 

Bos'on ; 
But I know this : our money \s safest 

trusted 



In sunthin', come wut will, thet can't 

be busted, 
An' thet 's the old Amerikin idee, 
To make a man a Man an' let him be. 

[Gret applause.] 
Ez for their l'yalty, don't take a goad 

to 't, 
But I do' want to block their only road 

to't 
By lettin' 'em believe thet they can git 
Mor 'n wut they lost, out of our little 

wit : 
I tell ye wut, I 'm 'fraid we '11 drif to 

leeward 
'thout we can put more stiffen in' into 

Seward ; 
He seems to think Columby 'd better ect 
Like a scared widder with a boy stiff- 
necked 
Thet stomps an' swears he wun't come 

in to supper ; 
She mus' set up for him, ez weak ez 

T upper, 
Keepin' the Constitootion on to warm, 
Tell he '11 eccept her 'pologies in form : 
The neighbors tell her he 's a cross- 
grained cuss 
Thet needs a hidin' 'fore he comes to 

wus ; 
"No," sez Ma Seward, "he's ez good 

'z the best, 
All he wants now is sugar-plums an' 

rest " ; 
"He sarsed my Pa," sez one; "He 

stoned my son," 
Another edds. " 0, wal, 't wuz jest his 

fun." 
" He tried to shoot our Uncle Sam well 

dead." 
" 'T wuz only tryin' a noo gun he hed." 
"Wal, all we ask 's to hev it understood 
You '11 take his gun away from him for 



We don't, wal, nut exac'ly, like his 

. P la y> 
Seein' he alius kin' o' shoots our way. 

You kill your fatted calves to no good 

eend, 
'thout his fust sayin', * Mother, I hev 

sinned ! ' " 

[" Amen ! " frum Deac'n Greenleaf.] 

The Pres'dunt he thinks thet the slick- 
est plan 

'ould be t' allow thet he 's our on'y 
man, 

An' thet we fit thru all thet dreffle war 



292 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Jes' for his private glory an' eclor ; 
" Nobody ain't a Union man," sez lie, 
" 'thout he agrees, thru thick an' thin, 

with me ; 
War n't Andrew Jackson's 'nitials jes' 

like mine ? 
An' ain't thet sunthin like a right 

divine 
To cut up ez kentenkerous ez I please, 
An' treat your Congress like a nest o' 

fleas ? " 
Wal, I expec' the People would n' 

care, if 
The question now wuz techin' bank or 

tariff, 
But I conclude they 've 'bout made up 

- their mind 
This ain't the fittest time to go it blind, 
Nor these ain't metters thet with pol- 

'tics swings, 
But goes 'way down amongst the roots 

o' things ; 
Coz Sumner talked o' whitewashin' one 

day 
They wun't let four years' war be thro wed 

away. 
u Let the South hev her rights ? " They 

say, " Thet's you ! 
But nut greb hold of other folks's tu." 
Who owns this country, is it they or 

Andy? 
Leastways it ough' to be the People and 

he ; 
Let him be senior pardner, ef he 's so, 
But let them kin' o' smuggle in ez Co ; 

[Laughter.] 
Did he diskiver it ? Consid'ble numbers 
Think thet the job wuz taken by Co- 
lumbus. 
Did he set tu an' make it wut it is ? 
Ef so, I guess the One-Man-power hez 

riz. 
Did he put thru the rebbles, clear the 

docket, 
An' pay th' expenses out of his own 

pocket ? 
Ef thet 's the case, then everythin' I 

exes 
Is t' hev him come an' pay my ennooal 

texes. [Profound sensation.] 

Was 't he thet shou'dered all them mil- 
lion guns ? 
Did he lose all the fathers, brothers, 

sons ? 
Is this ere pop'lar gov'ment thet we 

run 
A' kin' o' sulky, made to kerry one ? 



An' is the country goin' to knuckle 

down 
To hev Smith sort their letters 'stid o' 

Brown ? 
Who wuz the 'Nited States 'fore Rich- 

mon' fell ? 
Wuz the South needfle their full name 

^ to spell ? 
An' can't we spell it in thet short-han' 

way 
Till th' underpinnin' 's settled so 's to 

stay ? 
Who cares for the Resolves of '61, 
Thet tried to coax an airthquake with a 

bun? 
Hez act'ly nothin' taken place sence 

then 
To larn folks they must hendle fects 

like men ? 
Ain't this the true p'int ? Did the Rebs 

accep' 'em ? 
Ef nut, whose fault is 't thet we hev n't 

kep 'em ? 
War n't there two sides ? an' don't it 

stend to reason 
Thet this week's 'Nited States ain't las' 

week's treason ? 
When all these sums is done, with. 

nothin' missed, 
An' nut afore, this school '11 be dis- 
missed. 

I knowed ez wal ez though I 'd seen 't 

with eyes 
Thet when the war wuz over copper 'd 

rise, 
An' thet we 'd hev a rile-up in our 

kettle 
't would need Leviathan's whole skin 

to settle : 
I thought 't would take about a genera- 
tion 
'fore we could wal begin to be a nation, 
But I allow I never did imegine 
't would be our Pres'dunt thet 'ould 

drive a wedge in 
To keep the split from closin' ef it could, 
An' healin' over with new wholesome 

wood ; 
For th' ain't no chance o' healin' while 

they think 
Thet law an' gov'ment 's only printer's 

ink ; 
I mus' confess I thank him for dis- 

coverin' 
The curus way in which the States are 

sovereign ; 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



29c 



They ain't nut quite enough so to rebel, 
But, when they fin' it 's costly to raise 

h — , [A groan from Deac'n G.J 

Why, then, for jes' the same supeii'tive 

reason. 
They 're 'most too much so to be tetched 

for treason ; 
They cant go out, but ef they somehow 

die, 
Their sovereignty don't noways go out 

tu ; 
The State goes out, the sovereignty don't 

stir, 
But stays to keep the door ajar for her. 
He thinks secession never took 'em out, 
An' mebby he 's correc', but I misdoubt ; 
Ef they war n't out, then why, 'n the* 

name o' sin, 
Make all this row 'bout lettin' of 'em 

in ? 
In law, p'raps nut ; but there 's a dif- 

furence, ruther, 
Betwixt your mother-'n-law an' real 

mother, [Derisive cheers.] 

An' 1, for one, shall wish they 'd all 

been someres, 
Long 'z U. S. Texes are sech reg'lar 

comers. 
But, my patience ! must we wriggle 

back 
Into th' ole crooked, pettyfoggin' track, 
When our artil'ry-wheels a road hev cut 
Stret to our purpose ef we keep the rut ? 
War's jes' dead waste excep' to wipe the 

slate 
Clean for the cyph'rin' of some nobler 

fate. [Applause.] 

Ez for dependin' on their oaths an' thet, 
't wun't bind 'em mor 'n the ribbin 

roun' my het ; 
I heared a fable once from Othniel 

Starns, 
That pints it slick ez weathercocks do 

barns : 
Onct on a time the wolves hed certing 

rights 
Inside the fold ; they used to sleep there 

nights. 
An', bein' cousins o' the dogs, they took 
Their turns et watchin', reg'lar ez a 

book ; 
But somehow, when the dogs hed gut 

asleep, 
Their love o' mutton beat their love o' 

sheep, 
Till gradilly the shepherds come to see 



Things war n't agoin' ez they 'd ough' 

to be ; 
So they sent off a deacon to remonstrate 
Along 'th the wolves an' urge 'em to- go 

on straight ; 
They did n' seem to set much by the 

deacon, 
Nor preachin' didn' cow 'em, nut to 

speak on ; 
Fin'ly they swore thet they 'd go out an' 

stay, 
An' hev their fill o' mutton every day ; 
Then dogs an' shepherds, after much 

hard dammin', 

[Groan from Deac'n G.] 
Turned tu an' give 'em a tormented 

lammin', 
An' sez, "Ye sha' n't go out, the mur- 
rain rot ye, 
To keep us wastin' half our time to watch 

ye!" 
But then the question come, How live 

together 
'thout losin' sleep, nor. nary yew nor 

wether ? 
Now there wuz some dogs (noways wuth 

their keep) 
That sheered their cousins' tastes an' 

sheered the sheep ; 
They sez, "Be gin'rous, let 'em swear 

right in, 
An', et' the) 7 backslide, let 'em swear 

ag'in ; 
Jes' let 'em put on sheep-skins whilst 

they 're swearin' ; 
To ask for more 'ould be beyond all 

bearin'." 
" Be gin'rous for yourselves, where you 

're to pay, 
Thet 's the best prectice," sez a shep- 
herd gray ; 
" Ez for their oaths they wun't be wuth 

a button, 
Long 'z you don't cure 'em o' their taste 

for mutton ; 
Th' ain't but one solid way, howe'er you 

puzzle : 
Tell they 're convarted, let 'em wear a 

muzzle. " [Cries of "Bully for you ! "j 

1 've noticed thet each half-baked 
scheme's abetters 

Are in the hebbit o' producin' letters 

Writ by all sorts o' never-heared-on 
fellers, 

'bout ez oridge'nal ez the wind in hel- 
lers ; 



294 



THE BIGLOW PAPEKS. 



I 've noticed, tu, it 's the quack med'- 

cine gits 
(An' needs) the grettest heaps o' stiffy- 

kits ; [Two apothekeries goes out.] 

Now, sence I lef off creepin' on all fours, 
I hain't ast no man to endorse ray course ; 
It 's full ez cheap to be your own endor- 
ser, 
An' ef I 've made a cup, I '11 fin' the 

saucer ; 
But I 've some letters here from t' other 

side, 
An' them 's the sort thet helps me to 

decide ; 
Tell me for wut the copper-comp'nies 

hanker, 
An' I '11 tell you jest where it 's safe to 

anchor. " [Faint hiss.] 

Fus'ly the Hon'ble B. O. Sawin writes 
Thet for a spell he could n' sleep o' 

nights, 
Puzzlin' which side was preudentest to 

pin to, 
"Which wuz th' ole homestead, which the 

temp'ry leanto ; 
Et fust he jedged 't would right-side-up 

his pan 
To come out ez a 'ridge'nal Union man, 
"But now," he sez, " I ain't nut quite 

so fresh ; 
The winnin' horse is goin' to be Secesh ; 
\"ou might, las' spring, hev eas'ly walked 

the course, 
fore we contrived to doctor th' Union 

horse ; 
Now we 're the ones to walk aroun' the 

nex' track : 
Jest you take hold an' read the follerin' 

extrac', 
Out of a letter I received last week 
From an ole frien' thet never sprung a 

leak, 
A Nothun Dem'crat o' th' ole Jarsey 

blue, 
Born copper-sheathed an' copper-fastened 

tu." 

" These four years past it hez been tough 
To say which side a feller went for ; 
Guideposts all gone, roads muddy 'n' 

rough, 
An' nothin' duin' wut 't wuz meant for ; 
Pickets a-iirin' left an' right, 
Both sides a lettin' rip et sight, — 
Life war n't wutli hardly payin' rent for. 

" Columby gut her back up so, 

It war n't no use a-tryin' to stop her, — 



War's emptin's riled her very dough 
An' made it rise an' act improper ; 
't wuz full ez much ez I could du 
To jes' lay low an' worry thru, 
'thout hevin' to sell out my copper. 

" Afore the war your mod'rit men 
Could set an' sun 'em on the fences, 
Cyph'rin' the chances up, an' then 
Jump off which way bes' paid expenses ; 
Sence, 't wus so resky ary way, 
/ did n't hardly darst to say 
I 'greed with Paley's Evidences. 

[Groan from Deac'n G.] 

" Ask Mac ef tryin' to set the fence 
War n't like bein' rid upon a rail on 't, 
Headin' your party with a sense 
0' bein' tipjint in the tail on't, 
And tryin' to think thet, on the whole, 
You kin' o' quasi own your soul 
When Belmont 's gut a bill o' sale on't ? 
[Three cheers for Grant and Sherman.] 

"Come peace, I sposed thet folks 'ould 

like 
Their pol'tics done ag'in by proxy 
Give their noo loves the bag an' strike 
A fresh trade with their reg'lar doxy ; 
But the drag 's broke, now slavery 's 

, gone, 
An' there 's gret resk they '11 blunder on, 
Ef they ain't stopped, to real Democ'cy. 

"We 've gut an awful row to hoe 
In this 'ere job o' reconstructin' ; 
Folks dunno skurce which way to go, 
Where th' ain't some boghole to be 

ducked in ; 
But one thing 's clear ; there is a crack, 
Ef we pry hard, 'twixt white an' black, 
Where the old makebate can be tucked 

in. 

"No white man sets in airth's broad 

aisle 
Thet I ain't willin' t' own ez brother, 
An' ef he 's heppened to strike ile, 
1 dunno, fin'ly, but I 'd ruther ; 
An' Paddies, long 'z they vote all right, 
Though they ain't jest a nat'ral white, 
I hold one on 'em good 'z another. 

[Applause.] 

"Wut is there lef I 'd like to know, 
Ef 't ain't the difference o' color, 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



295 



To keep up self-respec' an' show 
The human natur' of a fullah? 
Wut good in bein' white, onless 
It 's fixed by law, nut lei' to guess, 
That we are smarter an' they duller ? 

" Ef we 're to hev our ekle rights, 
't wun't du to 'low no competition ; 
Th' ole debt doo us for bein' whites 
, Ain't safe onless we stop th' emission 
i 0' these noo notes, whose specie base 
Is human natur', 'thout no trace 
0' shape, nor color, nor condition. 

[Continood applause.] 

"So fur I 'd writ an' could n' jedge 
Aboard wut boat I 'd best take pessige, 
My brains all mincemeat, 'thout no 

edge 
Upon 'em more than tu a sessige, 
But now it seems ez though I see 
Sun thin' resemblin' an idee, 
Sence Johnson's speech an' veto mes- 
sage. 

' ' I like the speech best, I confess, 

The logic, preudence, an' good taste 

on 't, 
An' it 's so mad, I ruther guess 
There 's some dependence to be placed 

on't; [Laughter.] 

It 's narrer, but 'twixt you an' me, 
Out o' the allies o' J. D. 
A temp'ry party can be based on 't. 

"Jes' to hold on till Johnson 's thru 
An' dug his Presidential grave is, 
An' then ! — who knows but we could 
slew 

The country roun' to put in ? 

Wun't some folks rare up when we pull 
Out o' their eyes our Union wool 
An' lam 'em wut a p'lit'cle shave is ! 

" 0, did it seem 'z ef Providunce 
Could ever send a second Tyler? 
To see the South all back to once, 



Reapin' the spiles o' the Freesiler, 
Is cute ez though an ingineer 
Should claim th' old iron for his sheer 
Coz 't was himself that bust the biler ! " 
[Gret laughter.] 

Thet tells the story ! Thet 's wut we 

shall git 
By try in' squirtguns on the burnin' Pit ; 
For the day never comes when it '11 du 
To kick off Dooty like a worn-out shoe. 
I seem to hear a whisperin' in the air, 
A sighin' like, of unconsoled despair, 
Thet comes from nowhere an' from 

everywhere, 
An' seems to say, "Why died we ? war 

n't it, then, 
To settle, once for all, thet men wuz 

men ? 
0, airth's sweet cup snetched from us 

barely tasted, 
The grave's real chill is feelin' life wuz 

wasted ! 
0, you we lef, long-lingerin' et the 

door, 
Lovin' you best, coz we loved Her the 

more, 
Thet Death, not we, had conquered, we 

should feel 
Ef she upon our memory turned her 

heel, 
An' unregretful throwed us all away 
To flaunt it in a Blind Man's Holiday ! " 

My frien's, I 've talked nigh on to long 
enough. 

I hain't no call to bore ye coz ye 're 
tough ; 

My lungs are sound, an' our own v"ice 
delights 

Our ears, but even kebbige-heads hez 
rights. 

It's the las' time thet I shell e'er ad- 
dress ye, 

But you '11 soon fin' some new torment- 
or : bless ye ! 

[Tumult'ous applause and cries of " Go on ! " 
"Don't stop!"] 



GLOSSARY. 



Act'lly, actually. 
Air, are. 
Airth, earth. 
Airy, area. 
Aree, area. 
Arter, after. 
Ax, ask. 



Beller, bellow. 
Bellowses, lungs. 
Ben, been. 
Bile, boil. 

Bimeby, by and by. 
Blurt out, to speak bluntly. 
Bust, burst. 

Buster, a roistering blade; used also 
eral superlative. 



as a gen- 



C. 

Caird, carried, 

Cairn, carrying. 

Caleb, a turncoat. 

Cal'late, calculate. 

Cass, a person with two lives. 

Close, clothes. 

Cockerel, a young cock. 

Cocktail, a kind of drink; also, an ornament 
peculiar to soldiers. 

Convention, a place where people are imposed 
on ; a juggler's show. 

Coons, a cant term for a now defunct party ; de- 
rived, perhaps, from the fact of their being 
commonly up a tree. 

Cornwailis, a sort of muster in masquerade ; sup- 
posed to have had its origin soon after the 
Revolution, and to commemorate the surren- 
der of Lord Cornwailis. It took the place of 
the old Guy Fawkes procession. 

Crooked stick, a perverse, froward person. 

Cunnle, a colonel. 

Cus, a curse ; also, a pitiful fellow. 



D. 



Darsn't, used indiscriminately, either in singu- 
lar or plural number, for dare not, dares not, 
and dared not. 

Deacon off, to give the cue to ; derived from a 
custom, once universal, but now extinct, in 
our New England Congregational churches. 
An important part of the office of deacon was 



to read aloud the hymns given out by the 

minister, one line at a time, the congregation 

singing each line as soon as read. 
Demmercrat, leadin', one in favor of extending 

slavery; a free-trade lecturer maintained in 

the custom-house. 
Desput, desperate. 
Doos, does. 
Doughface, a contented lick-spittle ; a common 

variety of Northern politician. 
Dror, draw. 
Du, do. 

Dunno, dno, do not or does not know. 
Dut, dirt. 

E. 

Eend, end. 
Ef, if. 

Emptins, yeast. 

Env'y, envoy. 

Everlasting, an intensive, without reference to 

duration. 
Ev'y, every. 
Ez, as. 



Fence, on the ; said of one who halts between 
two opinions ; a trimmer. 

Fer, for. ' 

Ferfle, ferful, fearful ; also an intensive. 

Fin', find. 

Fish-skin, used in New England to clarify 
coffee. 

Fix, a difficulty, a nonplus. 

Foller, folly, to follow. 

Forrerd, forward. 

Frum, from. 

Fur, far. 

Furder, farther. 

Furrer, furrow. Metaphorically, to draw a 
straight furrow is to live uprightly or deco- 
rously. 

Fust, first. 

G. 

Cin, gave. 

Git, get. 

Gret, great. 

Grit, spirit, energy, pluck. 

Grout, to sidk. 

Grouty, crabbed, surly. 

Gum, to impose on. 

Gump, a foolish fellow, a dullard. 

Gut, got. 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



297 



Hed, had. 

Heern, heard. 

Helium, helm. 

Hendy, handy. 

Het, heated. 

Hev, have. 

Hez, has. 

Hull, whole. 

Holt, hold. 

Huf, hoof. 

Hull, wlwle. 

Hum, home. 

Humbug, General Taylor's antislavery. 

Hut, hurt. 

I. 

Idno, I do not know. 

In'my, enemy. 

lnsines, ensigns; used to designate both the 

officer who carries the standard, and the 

standard itself. 
Inter, intu, into. 



Jedge, „ .. 

Jest, just. 

Jine, join. 

J hit, joint. 

Junk, a fragment of any solid substance. 



K 

Keer, care. 

Kep', kept. 

Killock, a small anchor. 

Kin', kin' o', kinder, kind, kind of. 



L. 

Lawth, loath. 

Less, let 's, let us. 

Let daylight into, to shoot. 

Let on, to hint, to confess, to own. 

Lick, to beat, to overcome. 

Lights, the bowels. 

Lily-pads, leaves of the water-lily. 

Long-sweetening, molasses. 



M. 

Mash, marsh. 

Mean, stingy, ill-natured. 

Min', mind. 

N. 

Nimepunce, ninepence, twelve and a half cents. 
Nowers, nowhere. 



Offen, often. 

Ole, old. 

Oilers, olluz, 

On, of; used before it or them, or at the end of 

a sentence, as on't, on'em, nut ez ever I 

heerd on. 
On'y, only. 
Ossifer, officer (seldom heard). 



P. 

Peaked, pointed. 

Peek, to peep. 

Pickerel, the pike, a fish. 

Pint, point. 

Pocket full of rocks, plenty of money. 

Pooty, pretty. 

Pop'ier, conceited, popular. 

Pus, purse. 

Put out, troubled, vexed. 



Q. 

Quarter, a quarter-dollar. 
Queen's-arm, a musket. 



R. 

Resh, rush. 

Revelee, the reveille. 

Rile, to trouble. 

Riled, angry ; disturbed, as the sediment in any 

liquid. 
Riz, risen. 

Row, a long row to hoe, a difficult task. 
Rugged, robust. 



S. 



Sarse, abuse, impertinence. 

Sartin, certain. 

Saxon, sacristan, sexton. 

Scaliest, worst. 

Scringe, cringe. 

Scrouge, to crowd. 

Sech, such. 

Set by, valued. 

Shakes, great, of considerable consequence. 

Shappoes, chapeaux, cocked-hats. 

Sheer, share. 

Shet, shut. 

Shut, shirt. 

Skeered, scared. 

Skeeter, mosquito. 

Skooting, running, or moving swiftly- 

Slarterin', slaughtering. 

Slim, contemptible. 

Snake, crawled like a snake ; but to snake any 

one out is to track him to his hiding-place; 

to snake a thing out is to snatch it out. 
Somes, sofas. 
Sogerin', soldiering; a barbarous amusement 

common among men in the savage state. 
Som'ers, somewhere. 
So'st, so as that. 
Sot, set, obstinate, resolute. 
Spiles, spoils ; objects of political ambition. 
Spry, active. 
Staddles, stout stakes driven into the salt 

marshes, on which the hay-ricks are set, and 

thus raised out of the reach of high tides. 
Streaked, uncomfortable, < 
Suckle, circle. 
Sutthin', ,<?c 
Suttin, certain. 



T. 



Take on, to sorrow. 
Talents, talons. 
Taters, potatoes. 
Tell, till. 



298 



GLOSSARY. 



Tetch, touch. 

Tetch tu, to be able ; used always after a nega- 
tive in this sense. 

Tollable, tolerable. 

Toot, used derisively for playing on any wind 
instrument. 

Thru, through. 

Thundering, a euphemism common in New 
England for the profane English expression 
devilish. Perhaps derived from the belief, 
common formerly, that thunder was caused 
by the Prince of the Air, for some of whose 
accomplishments consult Cotton Mather. 

Tu, to, too ; commonly has this sound when 
used emphatically, or at the end of a sen- 
tence. At other times it has the sound of t 
in tough, as, Ware ye goin' to ? Goin' ta Bos- 
ton. 



U. 



Ugly, ill-tempered, intractable. 

Uncle Sam, United States; the largest boaster 

of liberty and owner of slaves. 
Unrizzest, applied to dough or bread ; heavy, 

most unrisen, or most incapable of rising. 



V. 

V-spot, a five-dollar bill 
Vally, value. 



W. 

Wake snakes, to get into trouble-. 

Wal, well ; spoken with great deliberation, and 
sometimes with the a very much flattened, 
sometimes (but more seldom) very much 
broadened. 

Wannut, walnut (hickory). 

Ware, where. 

Ware, were. 

Whopper, an uncommonly large lie ; as, that 
General Taylor is in favor of the Wilmot Pro- 
viso. 

Wig, Whig ; a party now dissolved. 

Wunt, will not. 

Wus, worse. 

Wut, what. 

Wuth, worth; as, Antislavery perfusions 'fore 
'lection aint wuth a Bungtown copper. 

Wuz, was, sometimes were. 



Y. 



Yaller, yellow. 
Yeller, yellow. 
Yellers, a disease of peach-trees. 



Z. 



Zach, Ole, a second Washington, an antislavery 
slaveholder; a humane buyer and seller of 
nvm and women, a Christian hero generally. 



^ RECEIVED ^ 



INDEX 




A. wants his axe ground, 257. 

A. B., information wanted concerning, 190. 

Abraham (Lincoln), his constitutional scruples, 

257. 
Abuse, an, its usefulness, 268. 
Adam, eldest son of, respected, 171 — his fall, 

274 — how if he had bitten a sweet apple ? 

277. 
Adam, Grandfather, forged will of, 246. 
iEneas goes to hell, 198. 
^olus, a seller of money, as is supposed by 

some, 198. 
/Eschylus, a saying of, 183, note. 
Alligator, a decent one conjectured to be, in 

some sort, humane, 203. 
Allsmash, the eternal, 260. 
Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal, tyrannical act 

of, 204. 
Ambrose, Saint, excellent (but rationalistic) 

sentiment of, 178. 
"American Citizen," new compost so called, 

198. 
American Eagle, a source of inspiration, 181 — 

hitherto wrongly classed, 184 — long bill of, 

ib. 
Americans bebrothered, 241. 
Amos cited, 178. 

Anakim, that they formerly existed, shown, 204. 
Angels providentially speak French, 174 — con- 
jectured to be skilled in all tongues, ib. 
Anglo-Saxondom, its idea, what, 174. 
Anglo-Saxon mask, 174. 
Anglo-Saxon race, 173. 

Anglo-Saxon verse, by whom carried to perfec- 
tion, 171. 
Anthony of Padua, Saint, happy in his hearers, 

250. 
Antiquaries, Royal Society of Northern, 263. 
Antonius, a speech of, 179 — by whom best 

reported, ib. 
Apocalypse, beast in, magnetic to theologians, 

192. 
Apollo, confessed mortal by his own oracle, 

192. 
Apollyon, his tragedies popular, 190. 
Appian, an Alexandrian, not equal to Shake- 
speare as an orator, 179. 
Applause, popular, the summum bonum, 265. 
Ararat, ignorance of foreign tongues is an, 184. 
Arcadian background, 199. 
Ar c'houskezik, an evil spirit, 250. 
Ardennes, AVild Boar of, an ancestor of Rev. 

Mr. Wilbur, 232. 
Aristocracy, British, their natural sympathies, 

255. 



Aristophanes, 177. 

Arms, profession of, once esteemed especially 
that of gentlemen, 171. 

Arnold, 180. 

Ashland, 199. 

Astor, Jacob, a rich man, 195. 

Astraea, nineteenth century forsaken by, 198. 

Athenians, ancient, an institution of, 179. 

Atherton, Senator, envies the loon, 186. 

" Atlantic," editors of. See Neptune. 

Atropos, a lady skilful with the scissors, 276. 

Austin, Saint, profane .wish of, 180, note — 
prayer of, 232. 

Austrian eagle split, 269. 

Aye-aye, the, an African animal, America sup- 
posed to be settled by, 175. 



B. , a Congressman, vide A. 

Babel, probably the first Congress, 184 — a 

gabble-mill, ib. 
Baby, a low-priced one, 197. 
Bacon, his rebellion, 251. 
Bacon, Lord, quoted, 251. 
Bagowind, Hon. Mr., whether to be damned, 

187. 
Balcom, Elder Joash Q. , 2d, founds a Baptist 

society in Jaalam, A. D. 1830, 283. 
Baldwin apples, 204. 
Baratarias, real or imaginary, which most 

pleasant, 198. 
Barnum, a great natural curiosity recommended 

to, 183. 
Barrels, an inference from seeing, 204. 
Bartlett, Mr. , mistaken, 239. 
Baton Rouge, 199 — strange peculiarities of 

laborers at, ib. 
Baxter, R. , a saying of, 178. 
Bay, Mattysqumscot, 203. 
Bay State, singular effect produced on military 

officers by leaving it, 174. 
Beast, in Apocalypse, a loadstone for whom, 

192 —tenth horn of, applied to recent events, 

275. 
Beaufort, 262. 

Beauregard (real name Toutant), 242, 256. 
Beaver brook, 287. 
Beelzebub, his rigadoon, 187. 
Behmen, his letters not letters, 191. 
Behn, Mrs. Aphra, quoted, 251. 
Bellers, a saloon-keeper, 200 — inhumanly , re- 
fuses credit to a presidential candidate, 

201. 
Belmont. See Woods. 
Bentley, his heroic method with Milton, 264. 



300 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Bible, not composed for use of colored persons, 
253. 

Biglow, Ezekiel, his letter to Hon. J. T. Buck- 
ingham, 169 — never heard of any one named 
Mundishes, ib. — nearly fourscore years old, 
ib. — his aunt Keziah, a notable saying of, ib. 

Biglow, Hosea, Esquire, excited by composition, 

169 — a poem by, ib. , 188 — his opinion of war, 

170 — wanted at home by Nancy, 170 — recom- 
mends a forcible enlistment of warlike editors, 
ib. — would not wonder, if generally agreed 
with, 171 — versifies letter of Mr. Sawin, 172 

— a letter from, 172, 185 — his opinion of Mr. 
Sawin, 171 — does not deny fun at Cornwal- 
lis, 172, note — his idea of militia glory, 173, 
note — a pun of, 173, note — is uncertain in 
regard to people of Boston, ib. — had never 
heard of Mr. John P. Robinson, 175 — aliquid 
sufflaminandv.s, 176 — his poems attributed to 
a Mr. Lowell, 177 — is unskilled in Latin, ib. 

— his poetry maligned by some, 178 — his dis- 
interestedness, ib. — his deep share in com- 
mon-weal, ib. — his claim to the presidency, 
ib. — his mowing, ib. — resents being called 
Whig, ib. — opposed to tariff, ib. — obstinate, 
ib. — infected with peculiar notions, ib. — 
reports a speech, 179 — emulates historians 
of antiquity, ib. — his character sketched 
from a hostile point of view, 184 — a request 
of his complied with, 187 — appointed at a 
public meeting in Jaalam, 191 — confesses 
ignorance, in one minute particular, of pro- 
priety, ib. — his opinion or' cocked hats, ib. 

— letter to, ib. —called "DearSir," by agen- 
eral, ib. — probably receives same compli- 
ment from two hundred and nine, ib. — picks 
his apples, 204 — his crop of Baldwins conjec- 
turally large, ib. — his labors in writing auto- 
graphs, 231 — visits the Judge and has a pleas- 
ant time, 239 — born in Middlesex County, 
243 — his favorite walks, ib. — his gifted pen, 
259 — born and bred in the country, 271 — 
feels his sap start in spring, 272 — is at times 
unsocial, ib. — the school-house where he 
learned his a b c, ib. — falls asleep, 273 — his 
ancestor a Cromwellian colonel, ib. — finds it 
harder to make up his mind as he grows 
older, 274 — wishes he could write a song or 
two, 277 — liable to moods, 285 — loves nature 
and is loved in return, 286 — describes some 
favorite haunts of his, 286, 287 — his slain 
kindred, 287 — his speech in March meeting, 
287 — does not reckon on being sent to Con- 
gress, 289 — has no eloquence, ib. — his own 
reporter, 290 — never abused the South, 
ib. — advises Uncle Sam, ib. — is not Boston- 
mad, 291 — bids farewell, 295. 

Billings, Dea. Cephas, 172. - 
Billy, Extra, demagogus, 281. 
Birch, virtue of, in instilling certain of the dead 

languages, 197. 
Bird of our country sings hosanna, 173. 
B.jarna Grimolfsson invents smoking, 264. 
Blind, to go it, 196. 

Blitz pulls ribbons from his mouth, 173. 
Bluenose potatoes, smell of, eagerly desired, 

173. 
Bobolink, the, 272. 
Bobtail obtains a cardinal's hat, 175. 
Boggs, a Norman name, 254. 
Bogus Four-Corners Weekly Meridian, 265. 
Bolles, Mr. Secondary, author of prize peace 

essay, 172 — presents sword to Lieutenant 



Colonel, ib. —a fluent orator, 173 —found to 

be in error, ib. 
Bonaparte, N. , a usurper, 192. 
Bonds, Confederate, their specie basis cutlery, 

236 — when payable, (attention, British 

stockholders !) 260. 
Boot-trees, productive, where, 197. 
Boston, people of, supposed educated, 173, 

note — has a good opinion of itself, 243. 
Bowers, Mr. Arphaxad, an ingenious photo- 
graphic artist, 264. 
Brahmins, navel-contemplating, 190. 
Brains, poor substitute for, 244. 
Bread-trees, 197. 
Bream, their only business, 239. 
Brigadier-Generals in militia, devotion of, 17t>. 
Brigadiers, nursing ones, tendency in, to literary 

composition, 233. 
Brigitta, viridis, 280. 
Britannia, her trident, 249. 
Brotherhood, subsides after election, 268. i 
Brown, Mr. , engages in an unequal contest, 187. 
Browne, Sir T., a pious and wise sentiment of, 

cited and commended, 171. 
Brutus Four-Corners, 232. 
Buchanan, a wise and honest man, 255. 
Buckingham. Hon. J. T., editor of the Boston 

Courier, letters to, 169, 171, 177, 185— not 

afraid, 172. 
Buffalo, a plan hatched there, 201 — plaster, a 

prophecy in regard to, 202. 
Buffaloes, herd of, probable influence of tracts 

upon, 277. 
Bull, John, prophetic allusion to, by Horace, 

240 — his " Rim," 243 — his mortgage, 246 — 

unfortunate dip of, 261 — wool pulled over 

his eyes, ib. 
Buncombe, in the other world supposed, 179, 

— mutual privilege in, 256. : 
Bung, the eternal, thought to be loose, 170. 
Bungtown Fencibles, dinner of, 175. 
Burke, Mr., his age of chivalry surpassed, 254. 
Burleigh, Lord, quoted for something said in 

Latin long before, 251. 
Burns, Robert, a Scottish poet N 239. 
Bushy Brook, 252. 
Butler, Bishop, 259. 
Butter in Irish bogs, 197. 



C, General, commended for parts, 176 — for 
ubiquity, ib. — for consistency, ib. — for 
fidelity, ib. — is in favor of war, ib. — his 
curious valuation of principle, ib. 

Cabbage-heads, the, always in majority, 289. 

Cabinet, English, makes a blunder, 241. 

Csesar, tribute to, 189 — his veni, vidi, vici, 
censured for undue prolixity, 193. 

Cainites, sect of, supposed still extant, 171. 

Caleb, a monopoly of his denied, 172 — curious 
notions of, as to meaning of " shelter," 174 
— his definition of Anglo-Saxon, ib. — charges 
Mexicans (not with bayonets but) with im- 
proprieties, ib. 

Calhoun, Hon. J. C, his cow-bell curfew, light 
of the nineteenth century to be extinguished 
at sound of, 185 — cannot let go apron-string 
of the Past, ib. — his unsuccessful tilt at 
Spirit of the Age, ib. — the Sir Kay of mod- 
ern chivalry, ib. — his anchor made of a 
crooked pin, ib. — mentioned, 185 - 187. 



INDEX. 



301 



Calyboosus, career, 282. 

Cambridge Platform, use discovered for, 175. 

Canaan in quarterly instalments, 265. 

Canary Islands, 197. 

Candidate, presidential, letter from, 191 — 
smells a rat, lb. — against a bank, ib. — takes 
a revolving position, 192 — opinion of pledges, 
ib. — is a periwig, ib. — fronts south by 
north, ib. — qualifications of, lessening, 193 — 
wooden leg (and head) useful to, 196. 

Cape Cod clergymen, what, 175 — Sabbath- 
breakers, perhaps, reproved by, ib. 

Captains, choice of, important, 290. 

Carolina, foolish act of, 290. 

Caroline, case of, 241. 

C.irpini, Father John de Piano, among the Tar- 
tars, 204. 

Cartier, Jacques, commendable zeal of, 204. 

Cass, General, 186 — clearness of his merit, ib. 
— limited popularity at "Bellers's," 200. 

Castles, Spanish, comfortable accommodations 
in, 198. 

Cato, letters of, so called, suspended naso 
adunco, 191. 

C. D., friends of, can hear of him, 190. 

Century, nineteenth, 255. 

Chalk egg, we are proud of incubation of, 190. 

Chamberlayne, Doctor, consolatory citation 
from, 251. 

Chance, an apothegm concerning, 233 — is im- 
patient, 275. 

Chaplain, a one-horse, stern-wheeled variety of, 
235. 

Chappelow on Job, a copy of, lost, 188. 

Charles I., accident to his neck, 274. 

Charles II. s his restoration, how brought about, 
274. 

Cherubusco, news of, its effects on English 
royalty, 183. 

Chesterfield no letter- writer, 191. 

Chief Magistrate, dancing esteemed sinful by, 
175. 

Children naturallv speak Hebrew, 171. 

China-tree, 197. 

Chinese, whether they invented gunpowder be- 
fore the Christian era not considered, 175. 

Choate hired, 201. 

Christ shuffled into Apocrypha, 175 — conjec- 
tured to disapprove of slaughter and pillage, 
176 — condemns a certain piece of barbarism, 
187. 

Christianitv, profession of, plebeian, whether, 
171. 

Christian soldiers, perhaps inconsistent, 
whether, 179. 

Cicero, 289, — an opinion of, disputed, 193. 

Cilley, Ensign, author of nefarious sentiment, 
175. 

Cimex lectularius, 173. 

Cincinnati, old, law and order party of, 269. 

Cmcinnatus, a stock character in modern com- 
edy, 199. 

Civilization, progress of, an alias, 188— rides 
upon a powder-cart, 191. 

Clergymen, their ill husbandry, 188— their 
place in processions, 199, — some, cruelly 
banished for the soundness of their lungs, 
204. 

Clotho, a Grecian lady, 276. 

Cocked-hat, advantages of being knocked into, 
191. 

College of Cardinals, a strange one, 175. 

Colman, Dr. Benjamin, anecdote of, 179. 



Colored folks, curious national diversion of 
kicking, 173. 

Colquitt, a remark of, 186 — acquainted with 
some principles of aerostation, ib. 

Columbia, District of, its peculiar climatic ef- 
fects, 180 — not certain that Martin is for 
abolishing it, 201. 

Columbiads, the true fifteen-inch ones,. 267. 

Columbus, a Paul Pry of genius, 190 — will per- 
haps be remembered, 263 — thought by some 
to have discovered America, 292. 

Col-Jinby, 200. 

Complete Letter- Writer, fatal gift of, 192. 

Compostella, Saint James of, seen, 174. 

Compromise system, the, illustrated, 266. 

Conciliation, its meaning, 277. 

Congress, singular consequence of getting into, 
180 — a stumbling-block, 256. 

Congressional debates found instructive, 184. 

Constituents, useful for what, 181. 

Constitution trampled on, 185 — to stand upon, 
what, 191. 

Convention, what, 181. 

Convention, Springfield, 180. 

Coon, old, pleasure in skinning, 186. ' 

Co-operation defined, 254. 

Coppers, caste in picking up of, 195. 

Copres, a monk, his excellent method of argu- 
ing, 184. 

Corduroy-road, a novel one, 234. 

Corner-stone, patent safety, 256. 

Cornwallis, a, 172 — acknowledged entertain- 
ing, ib. note. 

Cotton loan, its imaginary nature, 236. 

Cotton Mather, summoned as witness, 174. 

Country, our, its boundaries more exactly 
defined, 177 — right or wrong, nonsense about, 
exposed, ib. — lawyers, sent providentially, 
ib. — Earth's biggest, gets a soul, 279. 

Courier, The Boston, an unsafe print, 184. 

Court, General, farmers sometimes attain seats 
in, 199. 

Court, Supreme, 256. 

Courts of law, English, their orthodoxy, 265. 

Cousins, British, our ci-devant, 241. 

Cowper, W. , his letters commended, 191. 

Credit defined, 261. 

Creditors all on Lincoln's side, 256. 

Creed, a safe kind of, 196. 

Crockett, a good rule of, 236. 

Cruden, Alexander, his Concordance, 232. 

Crusade, first American, 174. 

Cuneiform script recommended, 193. 

Curiosity distinguishes man from brutes, 190. 

Currency, Ethiopian, inconveniences of, 236. 

Cynthia, her hide as a means of conversion, 
238. 



D. 



Daxlalus first taught men to sit on fences, 252. 

Daniel in the lion's den, 235. 

Darkies dread freedom, 256. 

Davis, Captain Isaac, finds out something to 
his advantage, 243. 

Davis, Jefferson (a new species of martyr), has 
the latest ideas on all subjects, 236 — supe- 
rior in financiering to patriarch Jacob, ib. — 
is some, 255 — carries Constitution in his hat, 
256 — knows how to deal with his Congress, 
ib. — astonished at his own piety, 260 — 
packed up for Nashville, 261 — tempted to 



302 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



believe his own lies, 262 — his snake egg, 267 
— the blood on his hands, 287. 

Davis, Mr., of Mississippi, a remark of his, 186. 

Day and Martin, proverbially "on hand," 169. 

Death, rings down curtain, 190. 

De Bow (a famous political economist), 254. 

Delphi, oracle of, surpassed, 183, note — al- 
luded to, 192. 

Democracy, false notion of, 257 — its privileges, 
278. 

Demosthenes, 289. 

Destiny, her account, 183. 

Devil, the, unskilled in certain Indian tongues 
174 — letters to and from, 191. 

Dey of Tripoli, 185. 

Didymus, a somewhat voluminous grammarian, 
192. 

Dighton rock character might be usefully em- 
ployed in some emergencies, 193. 

Dimitry Bruisgins, fresh supply of, 190. 

Diogenes, his zeal for propagating certain vari- 
ety of olive, 197. 

Dioscuri, imps of the pit, 175. 

District- Attorney, contemptible conduct of one, 
185. 

Ditchwater on brain, a too common ailing, 185. 

Dixie, the land or*, 256. 

Doctor, the, a proverbial saying of, 174. 

Doe, Hon. Preserved, speech of, 265-269. 

Doughface, yeast-proof, 189. 

Downing Street, 240. 

Drayton, a martyr, 185 — north star, culpable 
for aiding, whether, 187. 

Dreams, something about, 273. 

Dwight, President, a hymn unjustly attributed 
to, 275. 

D. Y., letter of, 191. 



E. 

Eagle, national, the late, his estate adminis- 
tered upon, 237. 

Earth, Dame, a peep at her housekeeping, 185. 

Eating words, habit of, convenient in time of 
famine, 182. 

Eavesdroppers, 190. 

Eclietlseus, 175. 

Editor, his position, 187 — commanding pulpit 
of, 188 — large congregation of, ib. — name 
derived from what, ib. — fondness for mut- 
ton, ib. — a pious one, his creed, ib. — a 
showman, 189 — in danger of sudden arrest, 
without bail, 190. 

Editors, certain ones w r ho crow like cockerels, 
170. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 284. 

Eggs, bad, the worst sort of* 269. 

Egyptian darkness, phial of, use for, 193. 

Eldorado, Mr. Sawin sets sail for, 197. 

Elizabeth, Queen, mistake of her ambassador, 
179. 

Emerson, 239. 

Emilius, Paulus, 242. 

Empedocles, 190. 

Employment, regular, a good thing, 195. 

Enfield's Speaker, abuse of, 268. 

England, late Mother-Country, her want of 
tact, 240 — merits as a lecturer, ib. —her 
real greatness not to be forgotten, 242 — not 
contented (unwisely) with her own stock of 
fools, 244 — natural maker of international 
l»w, ib. — her theory thereof, ib. — makes 



a particularly disagreeable kind of sarse, 244 
— somewhat given to bullying, ib. — has re- 
spectable relations, 245 — ought to be Co- 
lumbia's friend, 246 — anxious to buy an 
elephant, 255. 

Epaulets, perhaps no badge of saintship, 176. 

Epimenides, the Cretan Rip Van Winkle, 250. 

Episcopius, his marvellous oratory, 204. 

Eric, king of Sweden, his cap, 198. 

Ericsson, his caloric engine, 238. 

Eriksson, Thorwald, slain by natives, 265. 

Essence-pedlers, 257. 

Ethiopian, the, his first need, 259. 

Evangelists, iron ones, 175. 

Eyelids, a divine shield against authors, 184. 

Ezekiel, text taken from, 187. 

Ezekiel would make a poor figure at a caucus, 
270. 



F. 



Faber, Johannes, 285. 

Factory-girls, expected rebellion of, 186. 

Facts, their unamiability, 262 — compared to 
an old-fashioned stage-coach, 265. 

Falstaffii, legio, 280. 

Family-trees, fruit of jejune, 197 — a primitive 
forest of, 266. 

Faneuil Hall, a place where persons tap them- 
selves for a species of hydrocephalus, 185 — 
a bill of fare mendaciously advertised in, 197. 

Father of country, his shoes, 199. 

Female Papists, cut off in the midst of idol- 
atry, 198. 

Fenianorum, rixce, 280. 

Fergusson, his " Mutual Complaint," &c.,239. 

F. P., singular power of their looks, 256. 

Fire, we all like to play with it, 185. 

Fish, emblematic, but disregarded, where, 
184. 

Fitz, Miss Parthenia Almira, a sheresiarch, 
284. 

Flam, President, untrustworthy, 181. 

Flirt, Mrs., 251. 

Flirtilla, elegy on death of, 284. 

Floyd, a taking character, 261. 

Floydus, furcifer, 280. 

Fly-leaves, providential increase of, 184. 

Fool, a cursed, his inalienable rights, 278. 

Foote, Mr., his taste for field-sports, 186. 

Fourier, a squinting toward, 184, 

Fourth of July ought to know its place, 268. 

Fourth of Julys, boiling, 180. 

France, a strange dance begun in, 187 — about 
to put her foot in it, 255. 

Friar, John, 241. 

Fuller, Dr. Thomas, a wise saying of, 176. 

Funnel, old, hurraing in, 172. 



G. 



Gabriel, his last trump, its pressing nature, 266. 

Gardiner, Lieutenant Lion, 242. 

Gawain, Sir, his amusements, 185. 

Gay, S. H., Esquire, editor of National Anti- 
slavery Standard, letter to, 190. 

Geese, how infallibly to make swans of, 244. 

Gentleman, high-toned Southern, scientifi- 
cally classed, 252. 

Getting up early, 170, 1 74. 

Ghosts, some, presumed fidgety, (but see Still- 
ing's Pneumatology,) 190. 



INDEX. 



303 



Giants formerly stupid, 185. 

Gideon, his sword needed, 247. 

Gift of tongues, distressing case of, 184. 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 264. 

Globe Theatre, cheap season-ticket to, 190. 

Glory, a perquisite of officers, 195 — her account 
with B. Sawin, Esq., 197. 

Goatsnose, the celebrated, interview with, 193. 

God, the only honest dealer, 250. 

Goings, Mehetable, unfounded claim of, dis- 
proved, 239. 

Gomara has a vision, 174 — his relationship to 
the Scarlet Woman, ib. 

Governor, our excellent, 231. 

Grandfather, Mr. Biglow's, safe advice of, 243. 

Grandfathers, the, knew something, 248. 

Grand jurors, Southern, their way of finding a 
true bill, 235. 

Grant us, Dux, 281. 

Gravestones, the evidence of Dissenting ones 
held doubtful, 265. 

Gray's letters are letters, 191. 

Great horn spoon, sworn by, 186. 

Greeks, ancient, whether they questioned can- 
didates, 193. 

Green Man, sign of, 178. 

H. 

Habeas corpus, new mode of suspending it, 
260. 

Hail Columbia, raised, 235. 

Ham, sandwich, an orthodox (but peculiar) one, 
187 — his seed, 253 — their privilege in the 
Bible, ib. — immoral justification of, ib. 

Hamlets, machine for making, 194. 

Hammon, 183, note, 192. 

Hampton Roads, disaster in, 259. 

Hannegan, Mr., something said by, 186. 

Harrison, General, how preserved, 192. 

Hat, a leaky one, 236. 

Hat-trees, in full bearing, 197. 

Hawkins, his whetstone, 238. 

Hawkins, Sir John, stout, something he saw, 
197. 

Hawthorne, 239. 

Hay-rick, electrical experiments with, 278. 

Headlong, General, 242. 

Hell, the opinion of some concerning, 273 — 
breaks loose, 277. 

Henry the Fourth of England, a Parliament of, 
how named, 179. 

Hens, self-respect attributed to, 233. 

Herb, the Circean, 265. 

Herbert, George, next to David, 250. 

Hercules, his second labor probably what, 
204. 

Hermon, fourth-proof dew of, 253. 

Herodotus, story from, 171. 

Hesperides, an inference from, 198. 

Hessians, native American soldiers, 256. 

Hickory, Old, his method, 27S. 

Higgses, their natural aristocracy of feeling, 
254. 

Hitchcock, Doctor, 264. 

Hitchcock, the Rev. Jeduthun, colleague of 
Mr. Wilbur, 232 — letter from, containing no- 
tices of Mr. Wilbur, 275 — ditto, enclosing 
macaronic verses, 279 — teacher of high- 
school, 285. 

Hogs, their dreams, 233. 

Holden, Mr. Shearjashub, Preceptor of Jaalam 
Academy, 192 — his knowledge of Greek lim- 



ited, 193 — a heresy of his, ib. — leaves a 
fund to propagate it, ib. 

Holiday, blind man's, 295. 

Hollis, Ezra, goes to a Cornwallis, 172. 

Hollow, why men providentially so constructed. 
180. 

Holmes, Dr., author of "Annals of America," 
232. 

Homer, a phrase of, cited, 188. 

Homer, eldest son of Mr. Wilbur, 284. 

Homers, democratic ones, plums left for, 181. 

Hotels, big ones, humbugs, 248. 

House, a strange one described, 233. 

Howell, James, Esq., story told by, 179 — let- 
ters of, commended, 191. 

Huldah, her bonnet, 274. 

Human rights out of order on the floor of 
Congress, 185. 

Humbug, ascription of praise to, 189 — gener- 
ally believed in, ib. 

Husbandly, instance of bad, 176. 



Icarius, Penelope's father, 177, 

Icelander, a certain uncertain, 264. 

Idea, the Southern, its natural foes, 262 — the 
true American, 291. 

Ideas, friction ones unsafe, 268. 

Idyl defined, 239. 

Indecision, mole-blind, 291. 

Infants, prattlings of, curious observation con- 
cerning, 171. 

In.'ormation wanted (universally, but especially 
at page), 190. 

Ishmael, young, 248. 



Jaalam, unjustly neglected by great events, 
264. 

Jaalam Centre, Anglo-Saxons unjustly sus- 
spected by the young ladies there, 174 — " In- 
dependent Blunderbuss," strange conduct of 
editor of, 187 — public meeting at, 191 — 
meeting-house ornamented with imaginary 
clock, 198. 

Jaalam, East Parish of, 232. 

Jaalam Point, lighthouse on, charge of, pro- 
spectively offered to Mr. H. Biglow, 192. 

Jacobus, rex, 280. 

Jakes, Captain, 203 — reproved for avarice, ib. 

Jamaica, 290. 

James the Fourth, of Scots, experiment by, 
171. 

Jarnagin, Mr.,, his opinion of the complete- 
ness of Northern education, 186. 

Jefferson, Thomas, well-meaning, but inju- 
dicious, 268. 

Jeremiah, hardly the best guide in modern 
politics, 270. 

Jerome, Saint, his list of sacred writers, 191. 

Jerusha, ex-Mrs. Sawin, 237. 

Job, Book of, 171 — Chappelow on, 1S8. 

Johnson, Andrew, as he used to be, 267 — as 
he is : see Arnold^ Benedict. 

Johnson, Mr., communicates some intelligence, 
187. 

Jonah, the inevitable destiny of, 187 — prob- 
ably studied internal economy of the ceta- 
cea, 190 — his gourd, 253 — his unanimity in 
the whale, 255. 



304 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Jonathan to John, 248. 

Jortin, Dr., cited, 179, 183, note. 

Journals, British, their brutal tone, 240. 

Juanito, 263. 

Judea, everything not known there, 177 — not 

identical with A. D., 274. 
Judge, the, his garden, 239 — his hat covers 

many things, ib. 
Juvenal, a saying of, 183, note. 

K. 

Kay, Sir, the, of modern chivalry, 191 — who, 

185. 
Key, brazen one, 185. 

Keziah, Aunt, profound observation of, 169. 
Kinderhook, 199. 

Kingdom Come, march to, easy, 194. 
Konigsmark, Count, 171. 



Lablache surpassed, 25S. 

Lacedaemonians banish a great talker, 188. 

Lamb, Charles, his epistolary excellence, 191. 

Latimer, Bishop, episcopizes Satan, 171. 

Latin tongue, curious information concerning, 
177. 

Launcelot, Sir, a trusser of giants formerly, 
perhaps would tind less sport therein now, 
185. 

Laura, exploited, 284. 

Learning, three-story, 272. 

Letcher, de la vieille roche, 254. 

Letcherus, nebulo, 280. 

Letters classed, 191 — their shape, ib. — of 
candidates, 192 — often fatal, ib. 

Lettres Cabalistiques, quoted, 240. 

Lewis Philip, a scourger of young native 
Americans, 183 — commiserated (though not 
deserving it), ib. note. 

Lexington, 243. 

Liberator, a newspaper, condemned by impli- 
cation, 178. 

Liberty, unwholesome for men of certain com- 
plexions, 188. 

Licking, when constitutional, 256. 

Lignum vitae, a gift of this valuable wood pro- 
posed, 174. 

Lincoln, too shrewd to hang Mason and Slidell, 
262. 

Literature, Southern, its abundance, 254. 

Little Big Boosy River, 237. 

Longinus recommends swearing, 172, note (Fu- 
seli did same thing). 

Long sweetening recommended, 194. 

Lord, inexpensive way of lending to, 236. 

Lords, Southern, prove pur sang by ablution, 
254. 

Lost arts, one sorrowfully added to list of, 204. 

Louis the Eleventh of France, some odd trees' 
of his, 197. 

Lowell, Mr. J. R., unaccountable silence of, 177. 

Luther, Martin, his first appearance as Europa, 
174. 

Lyaeus, 282. 

Lyttelton, Lord, his letters an imposition, 191. 

M. 

Macrobii, their diplomacy, 193. 
Magoffin, a name naturally noble, 254. 
Mahomet, got nearer Sinai than some, 188. 



Mahound, his filthy gobbets, 174. 

Mandeville, Sir John, quoted, 240. 

Mangum, Mr., speaks to the point, 186 

Manichaean, excellently confuted, 184. 

Man-trees, grow where, 197. 

Maori chieftains, 241. 

Mapes, Walter, quoted, 241 — paraphrased, ib. 

Mares'-nests, finders of, benevolent, 190. 

Marius, quoted, 251. 

Marshfleld, 199, 201. 

Martin, Mr. Sawin used to vote for him, 201. 

Mason and Dixon's line, slaves north of, 186. 

Mason an F. F. V., 262. 

Mason and Slidell, how they might have been 
made at once useful and ornamental, 262. 

Mass, the, its duty defined, 186. 

Massachusetts on her knees, 170 ; something 
mentioned in connection with, worthy the 
attention of tailors, 180 ; citizen of, baked, 
boiled, and roasted (nefandum .'), 196. 

Masses, the, used as butter by some, 182. 

Maury, an intellectual giant, twin birth with 
Simms (which see), 254. 

Mayday a humbug, 270. 

M. C. , an invertebrate animal, 183. 

Me, Mister, a queer creature, 272. 

Mechanics' Fair, reflections suggested at, 193, 
194. 

Medium, ardentispiritualc, 280. 

Mediums, spiritual, dreadful liars, 274. 

Memminger, old, 236. 

Mentor, letters of, dreary, 191. 

Mephistopheles at a nonplus, 187. 

Mexican blood, its effect in raising price of 
cloth, 198. 

Mexican polka, 175. 

Mexicans charged with various breaches of eti- 
quette, 174 — kind feelings beaten into them, 
189. 

Mexico, no glory in overcoming, 181. 

Middleton, Thomas, quoted, 251. 

Military glory spoken disrespectfully of, 173, 
note — militia treated still worse, ib. 

Milk-trees, growing still, 197. 

Mill, Stuart, his low ideas, 261. 

Millenniums apt to miscarry, 278. 

Millspring, 262. 

Mills for manufacturing gabble, how driven, 
184. 

Mills, Josiah's, 272. 

Milton, an unconscious plagiary, 180, note — a 
Latin verse of, cited, 188 — an English poet, 
264— his " Hymn of the Nativity," 276. 

Missionaries, useful to alligators, 234 — culi- 
nary liabilities of, '253. 

Missions, a profitable kind of, 188. 

Monarch, a pagan, probably not favored in 
philosophical experiments, 171. 

Money-trees, desirable, 197 — that they once 
existed shown to be variously probable, ib. 

Montaigne, 285. 

Montaigne, a communicative old Gascon, 190. 

Monterey, battle of, its singular chromatic effect 
on a species of two-headed eagle, 183. 

Montezuma, licked, 234. 

Moody, Seth, his remarkable gun, 237 — his 
brother Asaph, ib. 

Moquis Indians, praiseworthy custom of, 264. 

Moses, held up vainly as an example, 188 — 
construed by Joe Smith, ib. — (not, A. J 
Moses) prudent way of following, 265. 

Muse invoked, 280. 

Myths, how to interpret readily, 193. 



INDEX. 



305 



N. 



Naboths, Popish ones, how distinguished, 175. 

Nana Sahib, 240. 

Nancy, presumably Mrs. Biglow, 242. 

Napoleon III., his new chairs, 259. 

Nation, rights of, proportionate to size, 174 — 
young, its first needs, 260. 

National pudding, its effect on the organs of 
speech, a curious physiological fact, 175r 

Negroes, their double usefulness, 236 — getting 
too current, 261. 

Nephelim, not yet extinct, 204. 

New England overpoweringly honored, 182 — 
wants no more speakers, ib. — done brown 
by whom, ib. — her experience in beans be- 
yond Cicero's, 193. 

Newspaper, the, wonderful, 189 — a strolling 
theatre, ib. — thoughts suggested by tearing 
wrapper of, 190 — a vacant sheet, ib. — a 
sheet in which a vision was let down, ib. — 
wrapper to a bar of soap, ib. — a cheap im- 
promptu platter, ib. 

New World, apostrophe to, 248. 

New York, letters from, commended, 191. 

Next life, what, 18S. 

Nicotiana Tabacum, a weed, 264. 

Niggers, 176 — area of abusing, extended, 181 
— Mr. Sawin's opinions of, 202. 

Ninepence a day low for murder, 172. 

No, a monosyllable, 175 — hard to utter, ib. 

Noah enclosed letter in bottle, probably, 190. 

Noblemen, Nature's, 255. 

Nomas, Lapland, what, 198. 

North, the, has no business, 186 — bristling, 
crowded off roost, 192 — its mind naturally 
unprincipled, 268. 

North Bend, geese inhumanly treated at, 192 — 
mentioned, 199. 

North star, a proposition to indict, 187. 

Northern Dagon, 237. 

Northmen, gens indytissimo,, 263. 

Notre Dame de la Haine, 252. 

Now, its merits, 272. 

Nowhere, march to, 273. 



O'Brien, Smith, 240. 

Off ox, 191. 

Officers, miraculous transformation in charac- 
ter of, 174 — Anglo-Saxon, come very near 
being anathematized, ib. 

Old age, an advantage of, 239. 

Old One, invoked, 258. 

Onesimus made to serve the cause of impiety, 
253. 

O'Phace, Increase D., Esq., speech of, 179. 

Opinion, British, its worth to us, 241. 

Opinions, certain ones compared to winter flies, 
250. 

Oracle of Fools, still respectfully consulted, 
179. 

Orion becomes commonplace, 190. 

Orrery, Lord, his letters (lord !) 191. 

Ostracism, curious species of, 179. 

Ovidii Xasonis, carmen supposititium, 280. 



P. 

Palestine, 174. 

Paley, his Evidences, 294. 



Palfrey, Hon. J. G., 180, 182 (a worthy repre- 
sentative of Massachusetts). 

Pantagruel recommends a popular oracle, 179. 

Panurge, 241 — his interview with Goatsnose, 
193. 

Paper, plausible-looking, wanted, 260. 

Papists, female, slain by zealous Protestant 
bomb-shell, 198. 

Paralipomenon, a man suspected of being, 192. 

Paris, liberal principles safe as far away as, 
1SS. 

Parliamentum Indoctorum sitting in perma- 
nence, 179. 

Past, the, a good nurse, 185. 

Patience, sister, quoted, 173. 

Patriarchs, the, illiterate, 238. 

Patricius, brogipotens, 280. 

Paynims, their throats propagandisticallv cut, 
174. 

Penelope, her wise choice, 177. 

People, soft enough, 188 — want correct ideas, 
196 — the, decline to be Mexicanized, 266. 

Pepin, King, 191. 

Pepperell, General, quoted, 242. 

Pequash Junction, 285. 

Periwig, 192. 

Perley, Mr. Asaph, has charge of bass-viol, 250. 

Perseus, King, his avarice, 242. 

Persius, a pithy saying of, 182, note. 

Pescara, Marquis, saying of, 171. 

Peter, Saint, a letter of (post-mortem), 191. 

Petrarch, exploited Laura, 284. 

Petronius, 241. 

Pettibone, Jabez, bursts up, 254. 

Pettus came over with Wilhelmus Conquistor, 
254. 

Phaon, 284. 

Pharaoh, his lean kine, 247. 

Pharisees, opprobriously referred to, 188. 

Philippe, Louis, in pea-jacket, 189. 

Phillips, Wendell, catches a Tartar, 269. 

Phlegyas quoted, 187. 

Phrygian language, whether Adam spoke it, 
171. 

Pickens, a Norman name, 254. 

Pilcoxes, genealogy of, 232. 

Pilgrim Father, apparition of, 273. 

Pilgrims, the, 181. 

Pillows, constitutional, 183. 

Pine-trees, their sympathy, 272. 

Pinto, Mr., some * letters of his commended, 
191. 

Pisgah, an impromptu one, 198. 

Platform, party, a convenient one, 196. 

Plato, supped with, 190 — his man, 192. 

Pleiades, the, not enough esteemed, 190. 

Pliny, his letters not admired, 191. 

Plotmus, a story of, 185. 

Plymouth Rock, Old, a Convention wrecked 
on, 181. 

Poets apt to become sophisticated, 270. 

Point Tribulation, Mr. Sawin wrecked on, 197. 

Poles, exile, whether crop of beans depends on, 
173, note. 

Polk, nomen gentile, 254. 

Polk, President, synonymous with our coun- 
try, 176 — censured, 181 — in danger of being 
crushed, 1S2. 

Polka, Mexican, 175. 

Pomp, a runaway slave, his nest> 202 — hypo- 
critically groans like white man, ib. — blind 
to Christian privileges, ib. — his society 
valued at fifty dollars, ib. —his treachery, 



306 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



203 — takes Mr. Sawin prisoner, ib. — cruelly 
makes him work, ib. — puts himself illegally 
under his tuition, ib. — dismisses him with 
contumelious epithets, ib. — a negro, 234. 

Pontifical bull a tamed one, 174. 

Pope, his verse excellent, 171. 

Pork, refractory in boiling, 174. 

Portico, the, 284. 

Portugal, Alphonso the Sixth of, a monster, 
204. 

Post, Boston, 177 — shaken visibly, 178 — bad 
guide-post, ib. — too swift, ib. — edited by a 
colonel, ib. — who is presumed officially in 
Mexico, ib. — referred to, 184. 

Pot-hooks, death in, 193. 

Power, a first-class, elements of, 259. 

Preacher, an ornamental symbol, 188 — a 
breeder of dogmas, ib. — earnestness of, im- 
portant, 204. 

Present, considered as an annalist, 188 — not 
long wonderful, 190. 

President, slaveholding natural to, 189 — must 
be a Southern resident, 197 — must own a 
nigger, ib. — the, his policy, 291 — his resem- 
blance to Jackson, 292. 

Princes mix cocktails, 260. 

Principle, exposure spoils it, 180. 

Principles, bad, when less harmful, 175 — when 
useless, 267. 

Professor, Latin, in College, 279 — Scal- 

iger, 280. 

Prophecies, fulfilment of, 262. 

Prophecy, a notable one, 183, note. 

Prospect Hill, 243. 

Providence has a natural life-preserver, 248. 

Proviso, bitterly spoken of, 191. 

Prudence, sister, her idiosyncratic teapot, 195. 

Psammeticus, an experiment of, 171. 

Psyche, poor, 285. 

Public opinion, a blind and drunken guide, 175 
— nudges Mr. Wilbur's elbow, ib. — ticklers 
of, 181. 

Punkin Falls " Weekly Parallel," 275. 

Putnam, General Israel, his lines, 243. 

Pythagoras a bean-hater, why, 193. 

Pythagoreans, fish reverenced by, why, 185. 



Quid, ingens nicotianum, 281. 
Quixote, Don, 185. 



R. 



Rafn, Professor, 263. 

Rag, one of sacred college, 175. 

Rantoul, Mr. , talks loudly, 172 — pious reason 
for not enlisting, ib. 

Recruiting sergeant, Devil supposed the first, 
171. 

Religion, Southern, its commercial advantages, 
252. 

Representatives' Chamber, 185. 

Rhinothism, society for promoting, 190. 

Rhyme, whether natural not considered, 171. 

Rib, an infrangible one, 194. 

Richard the First of England, his Christian fer- 
vor, 174. 

Riches conjectured to have legs as well as 
wings, 187. 

Ricos^Hombres, 251. 

Ringtail Rangers, 238. 



Roanoke Island, 262: 

Robinson, Mr. John P., his opinions fully 

stated, 176, 177. 
Rocks, pocket full of, 195. 
Roosters in rainy weather, their misery, 233. 
Rotation insures mediocrity and inexperience, 

257. 
Rough and ready, 200 — a wig, 201 — a kind of 

scratch, ib. 
Royal Society, American fellows of, 275. 
Rum and water combine kindly, 265. 
Runes resemble bird-tracks, 264. 
Runic inscriptions, their different grades of un- 

intelligibility and consequent value, 263. 
Russell, Earl, is good enough to expound our 

Constitution for us, 240. 
Russian eagle turns Prussian blue, 183. 
Ryeus, Bacchi epitheton, 282. 

S. 

Sabbath, breach of, 164. 

Sabellianism, one accused of, 192. 

Sailors, their rights how won, 246. 

Saltillo, unfavorable view of, 173. 

Salt-river, in Mexican, what, 173. 

Samuel, avunculus, 281. 

Samuel, Uncle, 235 — riotous, 183 — yet has 
qualities demanding reverence, 1S8 — a good 
provider for his family, ib. — an exorbitant 
bill of, 19S — makes some shrewd guesses, 
. 24S - 250 — expects his boots, 255. 

Sansculottes, draw their wine before drinking, 
186. 

Santa Anna, his expensive leg, 196. 

Sappho, some, human nature in, 284. 

Sassy Cus, an impudent Indian, 242. 

Satan, never wants attorneys, 174 — an expert 
talker by signs, ib. — a successful fisherman 
with little or no bait, ib. — cunning fetch of, 
175 — dislikes ridicule, 178 — ought not to 
have credit of ancient oracles, 183, note — his 
worst pitfall, 253. 

Satirist, incident to certain dangers, 176. 

Savages, Canadian, chance of redemption of- 
fered to, 204. 

Sawin, B., Esquire, his letter not written in 
verse, 171 — a native of Jaalam, ib. — not 
regular attendant on Rev. Mr. Wilbur's 
preaching, 172 — a fool, ib. —his statements 
trustworthy, ib. — his ornithological tastes, 
ib. —letter from, 171, 193, 199 — his curious 
discovery in regard to bayonets, 172 — dis- 
plays proper family pride, ib. — modestly 
confesses himself less wise than the Queen 
of Sheba, 173 —the old Adam in, peeps out, 
174 — a miles emeritus, 193 — is made text for 
a sermon, ib. —loses a leg, 194 — an eye, ib. 

— left hand, ib. — four fingers of right hand, 
ib. — has six or more ribs broken, ib. —a rib 
of his infrangible, ib. — allows a certain 
amount of preterite greenness in himself, ib. 

— his share of spoil limited, 195 — his opin- 
ion of Mexican climate, ib. — acquires prop- 
erty of a certain sort, ib. — his experience of 
glory, 196 — stands sentry, and puns there- 
upon, ib. — undergoes martyrdom in some of 
its most painful forms, ib. —enters the candi- 
dating business, ib. —modestly states the 
(availabilities which qualify him for high po- 
litical station, 196, 197 — has no principles, 
196 — a peaceman, ib. — unpledged, ib. — has 
no objections to owning peculiar property, but 



INDEX. 



307 



would not like to monopolize the truth, 197 

— his account with glory, ib. — a selfish mo- 
tive hinted in, ib. — sails for Eldorado, ib. — 
shipwrecked on a metaphorical promontory, 
ib. — parallel between, and Rev. Mr. Wilbur 
(not Plutarchian), 19S — conjectured to have 
bathed in river Selemnus, 199 — loves plough 
wisely, but not too well, ib. — a foreign mis- 
sion probably expected by, ib. — unanimous- 
ly nominated for presidency, ib. — his coun- 
try's father-in-law, 200 — nobly emulates 
Cincinnatus, ib. — is not a crooked stick, ib. 

— advises his adherents, ib. — views of, on 
present state of politics, 199-201— popular 
enthusiasm for, at Bellers's, and its disagree- 
able consequences, 200 — inhuman treatment 
of, by Bellers, 201 — his opinion of the two 
parties, ib. — agrees with Mr. Webster, ib. — 
his antislavery zeal, 201 — his proper self- 
respect, 202 — his unaffected piety, ib. — his 
not intemperate temperance, ib. — a thrilling 
adventure of, 202-203 — his prudence and 
economy, 202 — bound to Captain Jakes, but 
regains his freedom, 203 — is taken prisoner, 
ib. — ignominiously treated, ib. — his conse- 
quent resolution, ib. 

Sawin, Honorable B. O'F., a vein of humor sus- 
pected in, 232 — gets into an enchanted cas- 
tle, 233 — finds a wooden leg better in some 
respects than a living one, 234 — takes some- 
thing hot, ib. — his experience of Southern 
hospitality, 234, 235 — waterproof internally, 

234 — sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, 

235 — his liberal-handedness, 236 — gets his 
arrears of pension, ib. — marries the Widow 
Shannon, 237 — confiscated, ib. — finds in 
himself a natural necessity of income, 238 — 
his missionary zeal, ib. — never a stated at- 
tendant on Mr. Wilbur's preaching, 250 — 
sang base in choir, ib. — prudently avoided 
contribution toward bell, ib. — abhors a cov- 
enant of works, 252 — if saved at all, must be 
saved genteelly, ib. — reports a sermon, 253 

— experiences religion, ib. — would consent 
to a dukedom, 254 — converted to unanimity, 
255 — sound views of, 256 — makes himself 
an extempore marquis, 257 — extract of let- 
ter from, 294, 295 — his opinion of Paddies, 
294 — of Johnson, 295. 

Sayres, a martyr, 185. 

Scaliger, saying of, 176. 

Scarabceus pilularius, 173. 

Scott, General, his claims to the presidency, 
178, 179. 

Scrimgour, Rev. Shearjashub, 283. 

Scythians, their diplomacy commended, 193. 

Sea, the wormy, 264. 

Seamen, colored, sold, 171. 

Secessia, licta, 2S1. 

Secession, its legal nature defined, 237. 

Secret, a great military, 270. 

Selemnus, a sort of Lethean river, 199. 

Senate, debate in, made readable, 185. 

Seneca, saying of, 175 — another, 183, note — 
overrated by a saint (but see Lord Boling- 
broke's opinion of, in a letter to Dean Swift), 
191 — his letters not commended, ib. — a son 
of Rev. Mr. Wilbur, 198 — quoted, 276, 277. 

Serbonian bog of literature, 184. 

Sermons, some pitched too high, 250. 

Seward, Mister, the late, his gift of prophecy, 
243 — needs stiffening, 291 — misunderstands 
parable of fatted calf, ib. 



Sextons, demand for, 173 — heroic official de- 
votion of one, 204. 
Seymour, Governor, 277. 
Shakespeare, 285 — a good reporter, 179. 
Shaking fever, considered as an employment, 195. 
Sham, President, honest, 181. 
Shannon, Mrs., a widow, 235 — her family and 
accomplishments, 237 — has tantrums, ib. — 
her religious views, 252 — her notions of a 
moral and intellectual being, 253 — her 
maiden name, 254 — her blue blood, ib. 
Sheba, Queen of, 173. 
Sheep, none of Rev. Mr. Wilbur's turned wolves, 

171. 
Shem, Scriptural curse of, 203. 
Shiraz, Centre, lead-mine at, 254. 
Shirley, Governor, 242. 
Shoddy, poor covering for outer or inner man, 

274. 
Shot at sight, privilege of being, 255. 
Show, natural to love it, 173, note. 
Silver spoon born in Democracy's mouth, what, 

182. 
Sin, wilderness of, modern, what, 188. 
Sinai suffers outrages, 188. 
Skim-milk has its own opinions, 273. 
Skin, hole in, strange taste of some for, 195. 
Skippers, Yankee, busy in the slave-trade, 253. 
Simms, an intellectual giant, twin-birth with 

Maury (which see), 254. 
Slaughter, whether God strengthen us for, 175. 
Slaughterers and soldiers compared, 199. 
Slaughtering nowadays is slaughtering, 199. 
Slavery, of no color, 170 — corner-stone of 
liberty, 1S4 — also keystone, 186 — last crumb 
of Eden, 187 — a Jonah, ib. — an institution, 
192 — a private State concern, 202. 
Slidell, New York trash, 262. 
Sloanshure, Habakkuk, Esquire, President of 

Jaalam Bank, 258. 
Smith, Joe, used as a translation, 188. 
Smith, John, an interesting character, 190. 
Smith, Mr., fears entertained for, 187 — dined 

with, 190. 
Smith, N. B., his magnanimity, 189. 
Smithius, dux, 200. 
Soandso, Mr., the great, defines his position, 

188. 
Soft-heartedness, misplaced, is soft-headed- 

ness, 278. 
Sol, the fisherman, 173 — soundness of respira- 
tory organs hypothetically attributed to, ib. 
Soldiers, British, ghosts of, insubordinate, 243. 
Solomon, Song of, portions of it done into Latin 

verse by Mr. Wilbur, 279. 
Solon, a saying of, 175. 
Soul, injurious properties of, 257. 
South, the, its natural eloquence, 26S — facts 

have a mean spite against, 262. 
South Carolina, futile attempt to anchor, 135 

— her pedigrees, 251. 
Southern men, their imperfect notions of labor, 
235 — of subscriptions, 236 — too high-pres- 
sure, 238 — prima facie noble, 254. 
Spanish, to walk, what, 174. 
Speech-making, an abuse of gift of speech, 184. 
Spirit-rapping does not repay the spirits en- 
gaged in it, 274. 
Split-Foot, Old, made to squirm, 238. 
Spring, described, 270, 271. 
Star, north, subject to indictment, whether, 187 
Statesman, a genuine, defined, 268. 
Stearns, Othniel, fable by, 293. 



308 



THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 



Stone Spike, the, 243. 

Store, cheap cash, a wicked fraud, 198. 

Strong, Governor Caleb, a patriot, 177. 

Style, the catalogue, 271. 

Sumter, shame of, 247. 

Sunday should mind its own business, 268. 

Swearing commended as a figure of speech, 172, 

note. 
Swett, Jethro C, his fall, 288. 
Swift, Dean, threadbare saying of, 178. 



T. 



Tag, elevated to the Cardinalate, 175. 

Taney, C. J. , 257. 

Tarandfeather, Rev. Mr., 255. 

Tarbox Shearjashub, first white child born in 

Jaalam, 239. 
Tartars, Mongrel, 234. 
Taxes, direct, advantages of, 198. 
Taylor, General, greased by Mr. Choate, 201. 
Taylor zeal, its origin, 200. 
Teapots, how made dangerous, 277. 
Ten, the upper, 255. 

Tesephone, banished for long- win dedness, 184. 
Thacker, Rev. Preserved, D. D., 275. 
Thanks get lodged, 195. 
Thanksgiving, Feejee, 234. 
Thaumaturgus, Saint Gregory, letter of, to the 

Devil, 191. 
Theleme, Abbey of, 258. 

Theocritus, the inventor of idyllic poetry, 239. 
Theory, defined, 265. 
Thermopyles, too manv, 262. 
** They '11 say " a notable bully, 246. 
Thirty-nine articles might be made serviceable, 

175. 
Thor, a foolish attempt of, 185. 
Thoreau, 239. 

Thoughts, live ones characterized, 286. 
Thumb, General Thomas, a valuable member of 

society, 183. 
Thunder, supposed in easy circumstances, 194. 
Thvnne, Mr., murdered, 171~ 
Tibullus, 276. 
Time, an innocent personage to swear by, 172, 

note — a scene-shifter, 190. 
Tinkham, Deacon Pelatiah, story concerning, 

not told, 233 — alluded to, 239 — does a very 

sensible thing, 252. 
Toms, peeping, 190. 
Toombs, a doleful sound from, 262. 
Trees, various kinds of extraordinary ones, 197. 
Trowbridge, William, mariner, adventure of, 175. 
Truth and falsehood start from same point, 176 

— truth invulnerable to satire, ib. — compared 

to a river, 179 — of fiction sometimes truer 

than fact, ib. — told plainly, •passim. 
Tuileries, exciting scene at, 183 — front parlor 

of, 259. 
Tully, a saying of, 180, note. 
Tunnel, northwest-passage, a poor investment, 

25S. 
Turkey -Buzzard Roost, 237. 
Tuscaloosa, 237. 

Tutchel, Rev. Jonas, a Sadducee, 265. 
Tweedledee, gospel according to, 188. 
Tweedledum, great principles of, 188. 
Tyler us, juvenis insignis. 280 — porphyrogeniius, 

2S1 — Johannides, Jiito ceteris, 282 — bene 

titus, ib. 
Tyrants, European, how made to tremble, 235. 



U. 

Ulysses, husband of Penelope, 177 — borrows 
money, 198 (for full particulars of, see Homer 
and Dante) — rex, 2S0. 

Unanimity, new ways of producing, 255. 

Union, its hoops off, 255 — its good old mean- 
ing, 266. 

Universe, its breeching. 255. 

University, triennial catalogue of, 178. 

Us, nobody to be compared with, 235, and see 
World, passim. 



Van Buren fails of gaining Mr. Sawin's confi- 
dence, 202 — his son John reproved, ib. 

Van, Old, plan to set up, 201. 

Vattel, as likely to fall on your toes as on mine, 
249. 

Venetians invented something once, 198. 

Vices, cardinal, sacred conckave of, 175. 

Victoria, Queen, her natural terror, 183 — her 
best carpets, 259. 

Vinland, 264. 

Virgin, the, letter of, to Magistrates of Messina, 
191. 

Virginia, descripta, 280, 281. 

Virginians, their false heraldry, 251. 

Voltaire, esprit de, 280. 

Vratz, Captain, a Pomeranian, singular views of, 
171. 



W. 

Wachuset Mountain, 246. 

Wait, General, 242. 

Wales, Prince of, calls Brother Jonathan con- 
sanguineus noster, 241 — but had not, appar- 
ently, consulted the Garter King at Arms, ib. 

Walpole, Horace, classed, 190 — his letters 
praised, 191. 

Waltham Plain, Cornwallis at, 172. 

Walton, punctilious in his intercourse with 
fishes, 175. 

War, abstract, horrid, 191 — its hoppers, grist 
of, what, 195. 

Warren, Fort, 277. 

Warton, Thomas, a story of, 179. 

Washington, charge brought against, 200. 

Washington, city of, climatic influence of, on 
coats, 180 — mentioned, 185 — grand jury of, 
187. 

Washingtons, two hatched at a time by im- 
proved machine, 200. 

Watchmanus, noctivagus, 282. 

Water, Taunton, proverbially weak, 202. 

Water-trees, 197. 

We, 272. 

Weakwash, a name fatally typical, 242. 

Webster, his unabridged quarto, its deleteriousv 
ness, 279. 

Webster, some sentiments of, commended by 
Mr. Sawin, 201. 

Westcott, Mr., his horror, 187. 

Whig party has a large throat, 178 — but query 
as to swallowing spurs, 201. 

White-house, 192. 

Wickliffe, Robert, consequences of his burst* 
ing, 277. 

Wife-trees, 197. 



INDEX. 



309 



Wilbur, Mrs. Dorcas (Pileox), an invariable 
rule of, 178 — her profile, 179— tribute to, 
275. 

Wilbur, Rev. Homer, A. M., consulted, 169 — 
his instructions to his flock, 171 — a proposi- 
tion of his for Protestant bomb-shells, 175 — 
his elbow nudged, ib. — his notions of satire, 
ib. — some opinions of his quoted with ap- 
parent approval by Mr. Biglow, 176 — geo- 
graphical speculations of, 177 — a justice of 
the peace, ib. — a letter of, ib. — a Latin pun 
of, ib. — runs against a post without injury, 
178 — does not seek notoriety (whatever some 
malignants may affirm), i&. — fits youths for 
college, ib. — a chaplain during late war with 
England, 179 — a shrewd observation of, ib. 
— some curious speculations of, 181, 185 — 
his martello-tower, 184 — forgets he is not in 
pulpit, 1S7, 193 — extracts from sermon of, 
187, 189 — interested in John Smith, 190 — 
his views concerning present state of letters, 
190, 191 — a stratagem of, 192 — ventures two 
hundred and fourth interpretation of Beast 
in Apocalypse, ib. — christens Hon. B. Sawin, 
then an infant, 193 — an addition to our sylva 
proposed by, 197 — curious and instructive 
adventure of, 198 — his account with an un- 
natural uncle, ib. — his uncomfortable imagi- 
nation, 199 — speculations concerning Cin- 
cinnatus, ib. — confesses digressive tendency 
of mind, 204 — goes to work on sermon (not 
without fear that his readers will dub him 
with a reproachful epithet like that with 
which Isaac Allerton, a Mayflower man, re- 
venges himself on a delinquent debtor of his, 
calling him in his will, and thus holding him 
up to posterity, as "John Peterson, The 
Bore"), ib. —his modesty, 231 — disclaims 
sole authorship of Mr. Biglow's writings, ib. 
— his low opinion of prepensive autographs, 
ib. — a chaplain in 1812, 232 — cites a heathen 
comedian, 233 — his fondness for the Book 



of Job, ib. — preaches a Fast-Day discourse, 
ib. — is prevented from narrating a singular 
occurrence, ib. — is presented with a pair of 
new spectacles, 238 — his church services in- 
decorously sketched by Mr. Sawin, 253 — 
hopes to decipher a Runic inscription, 257 — 
a fable by, 258 — deciphers Runic inscription, 
263 - 265 — his method therein, 261 — is ready 
to reconsider his opinion of tobacco, 265 — 
his opinion of the Puritans, 270 — his death, 
275 — born in Pigsgusset, ib. — letter of Rev. 
Mr. Hitchcock concerning, 275, 276 — ibnd 
of Milton's Christmas hymn, 276 — his monu- 
ment (proposed), ib. — his epitaph, ib. — his 
last letter, 276, 277 — his supposed disem- 
bodied spirit, 279 — table belonging to, ib. — 

— sometimes wrote Latin verses, ib. — his 
table-talk, 283 - 285 — his prejudices, 283 — 
against Baptists, ib. — his sweet nature, 288 

— his views of style, ib. — a story of his, 289. 
Wildbore, a vernacular one, how to escape, 184. 
Wilkes, Captain, borrows rashly, 244 

Wind, the, a good Samaritan, 193. 

Wingfield, his "Memorial," 251. 

Wooden leg, remarkable for sobriety, 194 — 

never eats pudding, ib. 
Woods, the. See Belmont. 
Works, covenants of, condemned, 252. 
World, this, its unhappy temper, 233. 
Wright, Colonel, providentially rescued, 173. 
Writing dangerous to reputation, 232. 
Wrong, abstract, safe to oppose, 181. 



Yankees, their worst wooden nutmegs, 263. 



Zack, Old, 200. 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 



1850. 



u /zSlj£4st<+~£^£^^ 




THE UNHAPPY LOT 



KNOTT. 



PART I. 

SHOWING HOW HE BUILT HIS HOUSE 
AND HIS WIFE MOVED INTO IT. 

My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott, 

From business snug withdrawn, 
Was much contented with a lot 
That would contain a Tudor cot 
'Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot, 
And twelve feet more of lawn. 

He had laid business on the shelf 

To give his taste expansion, 
And, since no man, retired with pelf, 

The building mania can shun, 
Knott, being middle-aged himself, 
Resolved to build (unhappy elf !) 

A mediaeval mansion. 

He called an architect in counsel ; 

"I want," said he, "a — you know 
what, 

(You are a builder, I am Knott,) 

A thing complete from chimney-pot 
Down to the very grounsel ; 

Here 's a half- acre of good land ; 

Just have it nicely mapped and 
planned 
And make your workmen drive on ; 

Meadow there is, and upland too, 

And I should like a water-view, 
D' you think you could contrive one ? 

(Perhaps the pump and trough would 
do, 

If painted a judicious blue ?) 

The woodland I 've attended to " ; 

[He meant three pines stuck up 
askew, 
Two dead ones and a live one.] 

"A pocket-full of rocks 'twould take 
To build a house of freestone, 

But then it is not hard to make 



What nowadays is the stone ; 
The cunning painter in a trice 
Your house's outside petrifies, 
And people think it very gneiss 

Without inquiring deeper ; * 
My money never shall be thrown 
Away on such a deal of stone, 

When stone of deal is cheaper." 

And so the greenest of antiques 

Was reared for Knott to dwell in : 
The architect worked hard for weeks 
In venting all his private peaks 
Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks 

Had satisfied Fluellen ; 
Whatever anybody had 
Out of the common, good or bad, 

Knott had it all worked well in; 
A donjon-keep, where clothes might 

dry, 
A porter's lodge that was a sty, 
A campanile slim and high, 

Too small to hang a bell in ; 
All up and down and here and there, 
With Lord-knows-whats of round and 

square 
Stuck on at random everywhere, — 
It was a house to make one stare, 

All corners and all gables ; 
Like dogs let loose upon a bear, 
Ten emulous styles staboyed with care, 
The whole among them seemed to tear, 
And all the oddities to spare 

Were set upon the stables. 

Knott was delighted with a pile 
Approved by fashion's leaders : 

(Only he made the builder smile, 

By asking every little while, 

Why that was called the Twodoor style, 
Which certainly had three doors ?) 

Yet better for this luckless man 

If he had put a downright ban 



$14 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 



Upon the thing in limine ; 
For, though to quit affairs his plan, 
Ere many days, poor Knott began 
Perforce accepting draughts, that ran 

All ways — except up chimney ; 
The house, though painted stone to 

mock, 
With nice white lines round every 
block, 

Some trepidation stood in, 
When tempests (with petrihc shock, 
So to speak,) made it really rock, 

Though not a whit less wooden ; 
And painted stone, howe'er well done, 
Will not take in the prodigal sun 
Whose beams are never quite at one 

With our terrestrial lumber ; 
So the wood shrank around the knots, 
And gaped in disconcerting spots, 
And there were lots of dots and rots 

And crannies without number, 
Wherethrough, as you may well pre- 
sume, 
The wind, like water through a flume, 

Came rushing in ecstatic, 
Leaving, in all three floors, no room 

That was not a rheumatic ; 
And, what with points and squares and 
rounds 

Grown shaky on their poises, 
The house at nights was full of pounds, 
Thumps, bumps, creaks, scratchings, 

raps — till — " Zounds ! " 
Cried Knott, "this goes beyond all 

bounds ; 
I do not deal in tongues and sounds, 
Nor have I let my house and grounds 

To a family of Noyeses ! " 

But, though Knott's house 'was full of 
airs, 

He had but one, — a daughter ; 
And, as he owned much stocks and 

shares, 
Many who wished to render theirs 
Such vain, unsatisfying cares, 
And needed wives to sew their tears, 

In matrimony sought her ; 
They vowed her gold they wanted not, 

Their faith would never falter, 
They longed to tie this single Knott 

In the Hymeneal halter ; 
So daily at the door they rang, 

Cards for the belle delivering, 
Or in the choir at her they sang, 
Achieving such a rapturous twang 

As set her nerves ashivering. 



Now Knott had quite made up his mind 

That Colonel Jones should have her ; 
No beauty he, but oft we find 
Sweet kernels 'neath a roughish rind, 
So hoped his Jenny 'd be resigned 

And make no more palaver ; 
Glanced at the fact that love was blind, 
That girls were ratherish inclined 

To pet their little crosses, 
Then nosologically defined 
The rate at which the system pined 
In those unfortunates who dined 
Upon that metaphoric kind 

Of dish — their own proboscis. 

But she, with many tears and moans, 

Besought him not to mock her, 
Said 't was too much for flesh and bones 
To marry mortgages and loans, 
That fathers' hearts were stocks and 

stones, 
And that she 'd go, when Mrs. Jones, 

To Davy Jones's locker ; 
Then gave her head a little toss 
That said as plain as ever was, 
If men are always at a loss 

Mere womankind to bridle — 
To try the thing on woman cross 

Were fifty times as idle ; 
For she a strict resolve had made 

And registered in private, 
That either she would die a maid, 
Or else be Mrs. Doctor Slade, 

If woman could contrive it ; 
And, though the wedding-day was set, 

Jenny was more so, rather, 
Declaring, in a pretty pet, 
That, howsoe'er they spread their net, 
She would out-Jennyral them yet, 

The colonel and her father. 

Just at this time the Public's eyes 

Were keenly on the watch, a stir 
Beginning slowly to arise 
About those questions and replies, 
Those raps that unwrapped mysteries 

So rapidly at Rochester, 
And Knott, already nervous grown 
By lying much awake alone, 
And listening, sometimes to a moan, 

And sometimes to a clatter, 
Whene'er the wind at night would rous* 
The gingerbread-work on his house, 
Or when some hasty-tempered mouse, 
Behind the plastering, made a towse 

About a family matter, 
Began to wonder if his wife, 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF ME. KNOTT. 



315 



A paralytic half her life, 

Which made it more surprising, 
Might not to rule him from her urn, 
Have taken a peripatetic turn 

For want of exorcising. 

This thought, once nestled in his head, 
Erelong contagious grew, and spread 
Infecting all his mind with dread, 
Until at last he lay in bed 
And heard his wife, with well-known 

tread, 
Entering the kitchen through the shed, 

(Or was 't his fancy, mocking ?) 
Opening the pantry, cutting bread, 
And then (she 'd been some ten years 
dead) 

Closets and drawers unlocking ; 
Or, in his room (his breath grew thick) 
He heard the long-familiar click 
Of slender needles flying quick, 

As if she knit a stocking ; 
For whom ? — he prayed that years might 
flit 

With pains rheumatic shooting, 
Before those ghostly things she knit 
Upon his unfleshed sole might fit, 
He did not fancy it a bit, 

To stand upon that footing ; 
At other times, his frightened hairs 

Above the bedclothes trusting, 
He heard her, full of household cares, 
(No dream entrapped in supper's snares, 
The foal of horrible nightmares, 
But broad awake, as he declares,) 
Go bustling up and down the stairs, 
Or setting back last evening's chairs, 

Or with the poker thrusting 
The raked -up sea -coal's hardened 

crust — 
And — what ! impossible ! it must ! 
He knew she had returned to dust, 
And yet could scarce his senses trust, 
Hearing her as she poked and fussed 

About the parlor, dusting ! 

Night after night he strove to sleep 
And take his ease in spite of it ; 
But still his flesh would chill and creep, 
And, though two night-lamps he might 
keep, 
He could not so make light of it. 
At last, quite desperate, he goes 
And tells his neighbors all his woes, 

Which did but their amount enhance ; 
They made such mockery of his fears 
fhat soon his days were of all jeers, 



His nights of the rueful countenance ; 
"1 thought most folks," one neighbor 

said, 
"Gave up the ghost when they were 

dead?" 
Another gravely shook his head, 

Adding, " From all we hear, it 's 
Quite plain poor Knott is going mad — 
For how can he at once be sad 

And think he 's full of spirits ? " 
A third declared he knew a knife 

Would cut this Knott much quicker, 
1 ' The surest way to end all strife, 
And lay the spirit of a wife, 

Is just to take and lick her ! " 
A temperance man caught up the word, 
"Ah, yes," he groaned, "I 've always 
heard 

Our poor friend somewhat 'slanted 
Tow'rd taking liquor overmuch ; 
I fear these spirits may be Dutch, 
(A sort of gins, or something such,) 

With which his house is haunted ; % 
I see the thing as clear as light, — 
If Knott would give up getting tight, 

Naught farther would be wanted " : 
So all his neighbors stood aloof 
And, that the spirits 'neath his roof 
Were not entirely up to proof, 

Unanimously granted. 

Knott knew that cocks and sprites were 

foes, 
And so bought up, Heaven only knows 
How many, though he wanted crows 
To give ghosts caws, as I suppose, 

To think that day was breaking ; 
Moreover what he called his park, 
He turned into a kind of ark 
For dogs, because a little bark 
Is a good tonic in the dark, 

If one is given to waking ; 
But things went on from bad to worse, 
His curs were nothing but a curse. 

And, what was still more shocking, 
Foul ghosts of living fowl made scon 
And would not think of going off 

In spite of all his cocking. 
Shanghais, Bucks-counties, Dominiques, 
Malays (that did n't lay for weeks,) 

Polanders, Bantams, Dorkings, 
(Waiving the cost, no trifling ill, 
Since each brought in his little bill,) 
By day or night were never still, 
But every thought of rest would kill 

With cacklings and with quorkings ; 
Henry the Eighth of wives got free 



316 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 



By a way he had of axing ; 
But poor Knott's Tudor henery 
Was not so fortunate, and he 

Still found his trouble waxing ; 
As for the dogs, the rows theymade, 
And how they howled, snarled, barked 
and bayed, 

Beyond all human knowledge is ; 
All night, as wide awake as gnats, 
The terriers rumpused after rats, 
Or, just for practice, taught their brats 
To worry cast-off shoes and hats, 
The bull-dogs settled private spats, 
All chased imaginary cats, 
Or raved behind the fence's slats 
At real ones, or, from their mats, 
With friends, miles off, held pleasant 

chats, 
Or, like some folks in white cravats, 
Contemptuous of sharps and flats, 

Sat up and sang dogsologies. 
Meanwhile the cats set up a squall, 
And, safe upon the garden -wall, 

All night kept cat-a- walling, 
As if the feline race were all, 
In one wild cataleptic sprawl, 

Into love's tortures falling. 



PART II. 

SHOWING WHAT IS MEANT BY A FLOW 
OF SPIRITS. 

At first the ghosts were somewhat 

shy, 
Coming when none but Knott was nigh, 
And people said 't was all their eye, 
(Or rather his) a flam, the sly 

Digestion's machination : 
Some recommended a wet sheet, 
Some a nice broth of pounded peat, 
Some a cold flat-iron to the feet, 
Some a decoction of lamb's-bleat, 
Some a southwesterly grain of wheat ; 
Meat was by some pronounced unmeet, 
Others thought fish most indiscreet, 
And that 't was worse than all to eat 
Of vegetables, sour or sweet, 
(Except, perhaps, the skin of beet,) 

In such a concatenation : 
One quack his button gently plucks 
And murmurs, " Biliary ducks ! " 

Says Knott, " I never ate one " ; 
But all, though brimming full of wrath, 
Homceo, Alio, Hydropath, 
Concurred in this — that t' other's path 

To death's door was the straight one. 



Still, spite of medical advice, 

The ghosts came thicker, and a spice 

Of mischief grew apparent ; 
Nor did they only come at night, 
But seemed to fancy broad daylight, 
Till Knott, in horror and affright, 

His unoffending hair rent ; 
Whene'er with handkerchief on lap, 
He made his elbow-chair a trap, 
To catch an after-dinner nap, 
The spirits, always on the tap, 
Would make a sudden rap, rap, rap, 
The half-spun cord of sleep to snap, 
(And what is life without its nap 
But threadbareness and mere mishap ?) 
As 't were with a percussion cap 

The trouble's climax capping ; 
It seemed a party dried and grim 
Of mummies had come to visit him, 
Each getting off from every limb 

Its multitudinous wrapping ; 
Scratchings sometimes the walls ran 

round, 
The merest penny-weights of sound ; 
Sometimes 't was only by the pound 

They carried on their dealing, 
A thumping 'neath the parlor floor, 
Thump -bump-thump-bumping o'er and 

o'er, 
As if the vegetables in store 
(Quiet and orderly before) 

Were all together peeling ; 
You would have thought the thing was 

done 
By the spirit of some son of a gun, 

And that a forty-two- pounder, 
Or that the ghost which made such 

sounds 
Could be none other than John Pounds, 

Of Ragged Schools the founder. 
Through three gradations of affright, 
The awful noises reached their height ; 

At first they knocked nocturnally, 
Then, for some reason, changing quite, 
(As mourners, after six months' flight, 
Turn suddenly from dark to light,) 

Began to knock diurnally, 
And last, combining all their stocks, 

(Scotland was ne'er so full of Knox,) 
Into one Chaos (father of Nox,) 
Node pluit — they showered knocks, 

And knocked, knocked, knocked, 
eternally ; 
Ever upon the go, like buoys, 
(Wooden sea-urchins,) all Knott's joys, 
They turned to troubles and a noise 

That preyed on him internally. 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 



317 



Soon they grew wider in their scope ; 
Whenever Knott a door would ope, 
It would ope not, or else elope 
And fly back (curbless as a trope 
Once started down a stanza's slope 
By a bard that gave it too much rope — ) 

Like a clap of thunder slamming ; 
And, when kind Jenny brought his hat, 
(She always, when he walked, did that,) 
Just as upon his head it sat, 
Submitting to his settling pat, 
Some unseen hand would jam it flat, 
Or give it such a furious bat 

That eyes and nose went cramming 
Up out of sight, and consequently, 
As when in life it paddled free, 

His beaver caused much damning ; 
If these things seem o'er-strained to 

be, 
Read the account of Doctor Dee, 
'T is in our college library ; 
Read Wesley's circumstantial plea, 
And Mrs. Crowe, more like a bee, 
Sucking the nightshade's honeyed fee, 
And Stilling's Pneumatology ; 
Consult Scot, Glanvil, grave Wie- 
rus, and both Mathers ; further see, 
Webster, Casaubon, James First's trea- 
tise, a right royal Q. E. D. 
Writ with the moon in perigee, 
Bodin de la Demonomanie — 
(Accent that last line gingerly) 
All full of learning as the sea 
Of fishes, and all disagree, 
Save in Sathanas apage I 
Or, what will surely put a flea 
In unbelieving ears — with glee, 
Out of a paper (sent to me 
By some friend who forgot to P... 
A. . . Y. . . — I use cryptography 
Lest I his vengeful pen should dree — 
His P...O...S...T...A...G...E...) 

Things to the same effect I cut, 
About the tantrums of a ghost, 
Not more than three weeks since, at 
most, 
Near Stratford, in Connecticut. 

Knott's Upas daily spread its roots, 
Sent up on all sides livelier shoots, 
And bore more pestilential fruits ; 
The ghosts behaved like downright 

brutes, 
They snipped holes in his Sunday suits, 
Practised all night on octave flutes, 
Put peas (not peace) into his boots, 
Whereof grew corns in season, 



They scotched his sheetSg and, what was 

worse, 
Stuck his silk nightcap full of burs, 
Till he, in language plain and terse, 
(But much unlike a Bible verse,) 
Swore he should lose his reason. 

The tables took to spinning, too, 
Perpetual yarns, and arm-chairs grew 

To prophets and apostles ; 
One footstool vowed that only he 
Of law and gospel held the key, 
That teachers of whate'er degree 
To whom opinion bows the knee 
Wern't fit to teach Truth's a b c. 
And were (the whole lot) to a T 

Mere fogies all and fossils ; 
A teapoy, late the property 

Of Knox's Aunt Keziah, 
(Whom Jenny most irreverently 
Had nicknamed her aunt-tipathy) 
With tips emphatic claimed to be 

The prophet Jeremiah ; 
The tins upon the kitchen-wall, 
Turned tin tinnabula tors all, 
And things that used to come at call 

For simple household services 
Began to hop and whirl and prance, 
Fit to put out of countenance 
The Cojnmis and Grisettes of France 

Or Turkey's dancing Dervises. 

Of course such doings, far and wide, 
With rumors filled the country-side, 
And (as it is our nation's pride 
To think a Truth not verified 
Till with majorities allied) 
Parties sprung up, affirmed, denied, 
And candidates with questions plied, 
W T ho, like the circus-riders, tried 
At once both hobbies to bestride, 
And each with his opponent vied 

In being inexplicit. 
Earnest inquirers multiplied ; 
Folks, whose tenth cousins lately died, 
Wrote letters long, and Knott replied ; 
All who could either walk or ride 
Gathered to wonder or deride, 

And paid the house a visit ; 
Horses were to his pine-trees tied, 
Mourners in every corner sighed, 
Widows brought children there that 

cried, 
Swarms of lean Seekers, eager-eyed, 
(People Knott never could abide,) 
Into each hole and cranny pried 
With strings of questions cut and dried 



318 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 



From the Devout Inquirer's Guide, 
For the wise spirits to decide — 

As, for example, is it 
True that the damned are fried or boiled ? 
"Was the Earth's axis greased or oiled ? 
"Who cleaned the moon when it was 

soiled ? 
How baldness might be cured or foiled ? 

How heal diseased potatoes ? 
Did spirits have the sense of smell ? 
Where would departed spinsters dwell ? 
If the late Zenas Smith were well ? 
If Earth were solid or a shell ? 
Were spirits fond of Doctor Fell ? 
Did the bull toll Cock-Robin's knell ? 
What remedy would bugs expel i 
If Paine's invention were a sell ? 
Did spirits by Webster's system spell ? 
Was it a sin to be a belle ? 
Did dancing sentence folks to hell ? 
If so, then where most torture fell — 

On little toes or great toes ? 
If life's true seat were in the brain ? 
Did Ensign mean to marry Jane ? 
By whom, in fact, was Morgan slain ? 
Could matter ever suffer pain ? 
What would take out a cherry-stain ? 
Who picked the pocket of Seth Crane, 
Of Waldo precinct, State of Maine ? 
Was Sir John Franklin sought in vain ? 
Did primitive Christians ever train ? 
What was the family-name of Cain ? 
Them spoons, were they by Betty ta'en? 
Would earth-worm poultice cure a 

sprain ? 
Was Socrates so dreadful plain ? 
What teamster guided Charles's wain ? 
Was Uncle Ethan mad or sane, 
And could his will in force remain ? 
If not, what counsel to retain ? 
Did Le Sage steal Gil Bias from Spain ? 
Was Junius writ by Thomas Paine ? 
Were ducks discomforted by rain ? 
How did Britannia rule the main ? 
Was Jonas coming back again ? 
Was vital truth upon the wane ? 
Did ghosts, to scare folks, drag a chain ? 
Who was our Huldah's chosen swain ? 
Did none have teeth pulled without 
payin', 

Ere ether was invented ? 
Whether mankind would not agree, 
If the universe were tuned in C ? 
What was it ailed Lucindy's knee ? 
Whether folks eat folks in Feejee ? 
Whether his name would end with T ? 
If Saturn's rings were two or three, 



And what bump in Phrenology 

They truly represented ? 
These problems dark, wherein they 

groped, 
Wherewith mam's reason vainly coped, 
Now that the spirit-world was oped, 
In all humility they hoped 

Would be resolved instanter ; 
Each of the. miscellaneous rout 
Brought his, or her, own little doubt, 
And wished to pump the spirits out, 
Through his or her own private spout, 

Into his or her decanter. 



PART III. 

WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT THE 
MOST ARDENT SPIRITS ARE MORE 
ORNAMENTAL THAN USEFUL. 

Many a speculating wight 
Came by express-trains, day and night, 
To see if Knott would "sell his right," 
Meaning to make the ghosts a sight — 

What they called a " meenaygerie " ; 
One threatened, if he would not " trade," 
His run of custom to invade, 
(He could not these sharp folks persuade 
That he was not, in some way, paid, ) 

And stamp him as a plagiary, 
By coming down, at one fell swoop, 
With the ORIGINAL knocking 

TROUPE, 

Come recently from Hades, 
Who (for a quarter- dollar heard) 
Would ne'er rap out a hast}' word 
Whence any blame might be incurred 

From the most fastidious ladies ; 
The late lamented Jesse Sonle 
To stir the ghosts up with a pole 
And be director of the whole, 

Who was engaged the rather 
For the rare merits he 'd combine, 
Having been in the spirit line, 
Which trade he only did resign, 
With general applause, to shine, 
Awful in mail of cotton fine, 

As ghost of Hamlet's father ! 
Another a fair plan reveals 
Never yet hit on, which, he feels, 
To Knott's religious sense appeals — 
"We'll have your house set up on 
wheels, 

A speculation pious ; 
For music, we can shortly find 
A barrel-organ that will grind 
Psalm- times, — an instrument designed 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT, 



319 



For the New England tour — refined 
From secular drosses, and inclined 
To an unworldly turn, (combined 

With no sectarian bias ;) 
Then, travelling by stages slow, 
Under the style of Knott & Co., 
I would accompany the show T 
As moral lecturer, the foe 
Of Rationalism ; while you could throw 
The rappings in, and make them go 
Strict Puritan principles, you know, 
(How do you make 'em ? with your toe ?) 
And the receipts which thence might flow, 

We could divide between us ; 
Still more attractions to combine, 
Beside these services of mine, 
I will throw in a very fine 
(It would do nicely for a sign) 

Original Titian's Venus." 
Another offered handsome fees 
If Knott would get Demosthenes 
(Nay, his mere knuckles, for more ease) 
To rap a few short sentences ; 
Or if, for want of proper keys, 

His Greek might make confusion, 
Then just to get a rap from Burke, 
To recommend a little work 

On Public Elocution. 
Meanwhile, the spirits made replies 
To all the reverent whats and whys, 
Resolving doubts of every size, 
And giving seekers grave and wise, 
Who came to know their destinies, 

A rap-turous reception ; 
When unbelievers void of grace 
Came to investigate the place, 
(Creatures of Sadducistic race, 
With grovelling intellects and base,) 
They could not find the slightest trace 

To indicate deception ; 
Indeed, it is declared by some 
That spirits (of this sort) are glum, 
Almost, or wholly, deaf and dumb, 
And (out of self-respect) quite mum 
To sceptic natures cold and numb, 
Who of this kind of Kingdom Come 

Have not a just conception : 
True, there were people who demurred 
That, though the raps no doubt were heard 

Both under them and o'er them, 
Yet, somehow, when a search they made, 
They found Miss Jenny sore afraid, 
Or Jenny's lover, Doctor Slade, 
Equally awe-struck and dismayed, 
Or Deborah, the chamber-maid, 
Whose terrors not to be gainsaid, 
In laughs hysteric were displayed, 



Was always there before them ; 
This had its due effect with some 
Who straight departed, muttering, Hum ! 

Transparent hoax ! and Gammon ! 
But these were few : believing souls 
Came, day by day, in larger shoals, 
As the ancients to the windy holes 
'Neath Delphi's tripod brought their 
doles, 

Or to the shrine of Amnion. 

The spirits seemed exceeding tame, 
Call whom you fancied, and he came ; 
The shades august of eldest fame 

You summoned with an awful ease ; 
As grosser spirits gurgled out 
From chair and table with a spout, 
In Auerbach's cellar once, to flout 
The senses of the rabble rout* 
Where'er the gimlet twirled about 

Of cunning Mephistopheles, 
So did these spirits seem in store, 
Behind the wainscot or the door, 
Ready to thrill the being's core 
Of every enterprising bore 

With their astounding glamour ; 
Whatever ghost one wished to hear, 
By strange coincidence, was near 
To make the past or future clear 

(Sometimes in shocking grammar) 
By raps and taps, now there, now here — 
It seemed as if the spirit queer 
Of some departed auctioneer 
Were doomed to practise by the year 

With the spirit of his hammer : 
Whate'er you asked was answered, yet 
One could not very deeply get 
Into the obliging spirits' debt, 
Because they used the alphabet 

In all communications, 
And new revealings (though sublime) 
Rapped out, one letter at a time, 

With boggles, hesitations, 
Stoppings, beginnings o'er again, 
And getting matters into train, 
Could hardly overload the brain 

With too excessive rations, 
Since just to ask if two and two 
Really make four ? or, How d' ye do ? 
And get the fit replies thereto 
In the tramundane rat-tat-too, 

Might ask a whole day's patience. 

'T was strange ('mongst other things) to 

find 
In what odd sets the ghosts combined, 
Happy forthwith to thump any 



320 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 



Piece of intelligence inspired, 

The truth whereof had been inquired 

By some one of the company ; ■ 
For instance, Fielding, Mirabeau, 
Orator Henley, Cicero, 
Paley, John Zisea, Marivaux, 
Melancthon, Robertson, Junot, 
Scaliger, Chesterfield, Rousseau, 
Hakluyt, Boccaccio, South, De Foe, 
Diaz, Josephus, Richard Roe, 
Odin, Arminius, Charles Ic gros, 
Tiresias, the late James Crow, 
Casabianca, Grose, Prideaux, 
Old Grimes, Young Norval, Swift, Bris- 

sot, 
Maimonides, the Chevalier D'O, 
Socrates, Fenelon, Job, Stow, 
The inventor of Elixir pro, 
Euripides, Spinoza, Poe, 
Confucius, Hiram Smith, and Fo, 
Came (as it seemed, somewhat de trop) 
"With a disembodied Esquimaux, 
To say that it was so and so, 

With Franklin's expedition ; 
One testified to ice and snow, 
One that the mercury was low, 
One that his progress was quite slow, 
One that he much desired to go, 
One that the cook had frozen his toe, 
(Dissented from by Dandolo, 
"Wordsworth, Cynaegirus, Boileau, 
La Hontan, and Sir Thomas Roe,) 
One saw twelve white bears in a row, 
One saw eleven and a crow, 
With other things we could not know 
(Of great statistic value, though,) 

By our mere mortal vision. 

Sometimes the spirits made mistakes, 
And seemed to play at ducks and drakes 
With bold inquiry's heaviest stakes 

In science or in mystery ; 
They knew so little (and that wrong) 
Yet rapped it out so bold and strong, 
One would have said the- unnumbered 
throng 

Had been Professors of History ; 
What made it odder was, that those 
Who, you would naturally suppose, 
Could solve a question, if they chose, 
As easily as count their toes, 

Were just the ones that blundered ; 
One day, Ulysses happening down, 
A reader of Sir Thomas Browne 

And who (with him) had wondered 
What song it was the Sirens sang, 
Asked the shrewd Ithacan — bang! bang! 



With this response the chamber rang, 

" I guess it was Old Hundred." 
And Franklin, being asked to name 
The reason why the lightning came, 
Replied, " Because it thundered." 

On one sole point the ghosts agreed, 
One fearful point, than which, indeed, 

Nothing could seem absurder ; 
Poor Colonel Jones they all abused, 
And finally downright accused 

The poor old man of murder ; 
'T was thus ; by dreadful raps was shown 
Some spirit's longing to make known 
A bloody fact, which he alone 
Was privy to, (such ghosts more prone 

In. Earth's affairs to meddle are ;) 
Who are you ? with awe-stricken looks, 
All ask : his airy knuckles he crooks, 
And raps, " I was Eliab Snooks, 

That used to be a pedler ; 
Some on ye still are on my books ! " 
Whereat, to inconspicuous nooks, 
(More fearing this than common spooks,) 

Shrank each indebted meddler ; 
Further the vengeful ghost declared 
That while his earthly life was spared, 
About the country he had fared, 

A duly licensed follower 
Of that much-wandering trade that wins 
Slow profit from the sale of tins 

And various kinds of hollow -ware ; 
That Colonel Jones enticed him in, 
Pretending that he wanted tin, 
There slew him with a rolling-pin, 
Hid him in a potato-bin, 

And (the same night) him ferried 
Across Great Pond to t' other shore, 
And there, on land of Widow Moore, 
Just where you turn to Larkin's store, 

Under a rock him buried ; 
Some friends (who happened to be by) 
He called upon to testify 
That what he said was not a lie, 

And that he did not stir this 
Foul matter, out of any spite 
But from a simple love of right ; — 

Which statements the Nine Worthies, 
Rabbi Akiba, Charlemagne, 
Seth, Colley Cibber, General Wayne, 
Cambyses, Tasso, Tubal-Cain, 
The owner of a castle in Spain, 
Jehanghire, and the Widow of Nain, 
(The friends aforesaid,) made more plain 

And by loud raps attested ; 
To the same purport testified 
Plato, John Wilkes, and Colonel Pride 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 



321 



Who knew said Snooks before he died, 

Had in his wares invested, 
Thought him entitled to belief 
And freely could concur, in brief, 

In everything the rest did. 

Eliab this occasion seized, 
(Distinctly here the spirit sneezed,) 
To say that he should ne'er be eased 
Till Jenny married whom she pleased, 

Free from all checks and urgin's, 
(This spirit dropt his final g's) 
And that, unless Knott quickly sees 
This done, the spirits to appease, 
They would come back his life to tease, 
As thick as mites in ancient cheese, 
And let his house on an endless lease 
To the ghosts (terrific rappers these 
And veritable Eumenides) 

Of the Eleven Thousand Virgins ! 

Knott was perplexed and shook his head, 
He did not wish his child to wed 

With a suspected murderer, 
(For, true or false, the rumor spread,) 
But as for this roiled life he led, 
4 'It would not answer," so he said, 

" To have it go no furderer." 
At last, scarce knowing what it meant, 
Reluctantly he gave consent 
That Jenny, since 't was evident 
That she would follow her own bent, 

Should make her own election ; 
For that appeared the only way 
These frightful noises to allay 
Which had already turned him gray 

And plunged him in dejection. 

Accordingly, this artless maid 

Her father's ordinance obeyed, 

And, all in whitest crape arrayed, 

(Miss Pulsifer the dresses made 

And wishes here the fact displayed 

That she still carries on the trade, 

The third door south from Bagg's Arcade,) 

A very faint "I do " essayed 

And gave her hand to Hiram Slade, 

From which time forth, the ghosts were 

laid, 
And ne'er gave trouble after ; 
But the Selectmen, be it known, 
Dug underneath the aforesaid stone, 
Where the poor pedler's corpse was 

thrown, 
And found thereunder a jaw-bone, 
Though, when the crown er sat thereon, 
He nothing hatched, except alone 



Successive broods of laughter ; 
It was a frail and dingy thing, 
In which a grinder or two did cling, 

In color like molasses, 
Which surgeons, called from far and wide, 
Upon the horror to decide, 

Having put on their glasses, 
Reported thus — "To judge by looks, 
These bones, by some queer hooks or 

crooks, 
May have belonged to Mr. Snooks, 
But, as men deepest-read in books 

Are perfectly aware, bones, 
If buried fifty years or so, 
Lose their identity and grow 

From human bones to bare bones." 

Still, if to Jaalam you go down, 
You '11 find two parties in th,e town, 
One headed by Benaiah Brown, 

And one by Perez Tinkham ; 
The first believe the ghosts all through 
And vow that they shall never rue 
The happy chance by which they knew 
That people in Jupiter are blue, 
And very fond of Irish stew, 
Two curious facts which Prince Lee Boo 
Rapped clearly to a chosen few — 

Whereas the others think 'em 
A trick got up by Doctor Slade 
With Deborah the chamber-maid 

And that sly cretur Jinny. 
That all the revelations wise, 
At which the Brown ites made big eyes, 
Might have been given by Jared Keyes, 

A natural fool and ninny, 
And, last week, did n't Eliab Snooks 
Come back with never better looks, 
As sharp as new-bought mackerel hooks, 

And bright as a new pin, eh % 
Good Parson Wilbur, too, avers 
(Though to be mixed in parish stirs 
Is worse than handling chestnut-burs) 
That no case to his mind occurs 
Where spirits ever did converse, 
Save in a kind of guttural Erse, 

(So say the best authorities ;) 
And that a charge by raps conveyed 
Should be most scrupulously weighed 

And searched into, before it is 
Made public, since it may give pain 
That cannot soon be cured again, 
And one word may infix a stain 

Which ten cannot gloss over, 
Though speaking for his private part, 
He is rejoiced with all his heart 

Miss Knott missed not her lover, 



V2-2 



AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE. 



AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE. 



Somewhere in India, upon a time, 
(Read it not Injah, or you spoil the 
verse,) 
There dwelt two saints whose privi- 
lege sublime 
It was to sit and watch the world grow 
worse, 
Their only care (in that delicious 
clime) 
At proper intervals to pray and curse ; 
Pracrit the dialect each prudent 

brother 
Used for himself, Damnonian for the 
other. 



One half the time of each was spent 

in praying 
For blessings on his own unworthy 

head, 
The other half in fearfully portraying 
"Where certain folks would go when they 

were dead ; 
This system of exchanges — there 's 

no saying 
To what more solid barter 't would have 

led, 
But that a river, vext with boils and 

swellings 
At rainy times, kept peace between 

their dwellings. 

in. 

So they two played at wordy battle- 
dore 
And kept a curse forever in the air, 
Flying this way or that from shore 
to shore ; 
Nor other labor did this holy pair, 
Clothed and supported from the lavish 
store 
Which crowds lanigerous brought with 
daily care ; 



They toiled not neither did they spin ; 

their bias 
Was tow'rd the harder task of being 

pious. 



Each from his hut rushed six score 
times a day, 
Like a great canon of the Church full- 
rammed 
With cartridge theologic, (so to say,) 
Touched himself off, and then, recoiling, 
slammed 
His hovel's door behind him in a way 
That to his foe said plainly, — you "11 
be damned ; 
And so like Potts and Wainwright, 

shrill and strong 
The two D — D'd each other all day 
long. 



One was a dancing Dervise, a Mo- 
hammedan, 
The other was a Hindoo, a gymnoso- 

phist ; 
One kept his whatd'yecallit and his 

Ramadan, 
Laughing to scorn the sacred rites and 

laws of his 
Transfluvial rival, who, in turn, called 

Ahmed an 
Old top, and, as a clincher, shook across 

a fist 
With nails six inches long, yet lifted 

not 
His eyes from off his navel's mystic 

knot. 

VI. 

" Who whirls not round six thousa^. 
times an hour 
Will go," screamed Ahmed, "to tii> 
evil place ; 



AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE. 



323 



: 



May he eat dirt, and may the dog and 

Giaour 
Defile the graves of him and all his 

race ; 
Allah loves faithful souls and gives 

them power 
To spin till they are purple in the face ; 
Some folks get you know what, but 

he that pure is 
Earns Paradise and ninety thousand 

houries." 



1 ' Upon the silver mountain, South 
by East, 
Sits Brahma fed upon the sacred bean ; 
He loves those men whose nails are 
still increased, 
Who all their lives keep ugly, foul, and 
lean ; 
'T is of his grace that not a bird or 
beast 
Adorned with claws like mine was ever 
seen ; 
The suns and stars are Brahma's 

thoughts divine 
Even as these trees I seem to see are 



VIII. 

"Thou seem'st to see, indeed!" 

roared Ahmed back ; 
"Were I but once across this plaguy 

stream, 
With a stout sapling in my hand, one 

whack 
On those lank ribs would rid thee of 

that dream i 
Thy Brahma-blasphemy is ipecac 
To my soul's stomach ; couldst thou 

grasp the scheme 
Of true redemption, thou wouldst 

know that Deity 
Whirls by a kind of blessed sponta- 
neity. 

IX. 

' * And this it is which keeps our earth 
here going 
With all the stars." — " 0, vile! but 
there 's a place 
Prepared for such ; to think of Brah- 
ma throwing 
Worlds like a juggler's balls up into 
Space ! 
Why, not so much as a smooth lotos 

blowing 
3'er allowed that silence to efface 



Which broods round Brahma, and 

our earth, 't is known, 
Rests on a tortoise, moveless as this 

stone." 

x. 
So they kept up their banning amce- 

bsean, 
When suddenly came floating down the 

stream 
A youth whose face like an incarnate 

paean 
Glowed, 't was so full of grandeur and 

of gleam ; 
" If there be gods, then, doubtless, 

this must be one," 
Thought both at once, and then began 

to scream, 
" Surely, whate'er immortals know, 

thou k no west, 
Decide between us twain before thou 

goest ! " 

XI. 

The youth was drifting in a slim ca- 
noe 
Most like a huge white waterlily's petal, 

But neither of our theologians knew 
Whereof 't was made ; whether of heav- 
enly metal 
Unknown, or of a vast pearl split in 
two 
And hollowed, was a point they could 
not settle ; 
'T was good debate-seed, though, and 

bore large fruit 
In after years of many a tart dispute. 



There were no wings upon the stran- 

ger's shoulders 
And yet he seemed so capable of rising 
That, had he soared like thistledown, 

beholders 
Had thought the circumstance noways 

surprising ; 
Enough that he remained, and, when 

the scolders 
Hailed him as umpire in their vocal 

prize-ring, 
The painter of his boat he lightly 

threw 
Around a lotos-stem, and brought her 

to. 

XIII. 

The strange youth had a look as if 

he might 



324 



AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE. 



Have trod far planets where the atmos- 
phere 
(Of nobler temper) steeps the face 
with light, 
Just as our skins are tanned and freck- 
led here ; 
His air was that of a cosmopolite 
In the wide universe from sphere to 
sphere ; 
Perhaps he was (his face had such 

grave beauty) 
An officer of Saturn's guards off duty. 



Both saints began to unfold their tales 

at once, 
Both wished their tales, like simial 

ones, prehensile, 
That they might seize his ear ; fool ! 

knave, ! and dunce ! 
Flew zigzag back and forth, like strokes 

of pencil 
In a child's fingers ; voluble as duns, 
They jabbered like the stones on that 

immense hill 
In the Arabian Nights ; until the 

stranger 
Began to think his ear-drums in some 

danger. 



In general those who nothing have to 
say 
Contrive to spend the longest time in 
doing it ; 
They turn and vary it in every way, 
Hashing it, stewing it, mincing it, ra- 
gouting it ; 
Sometimes they keep it purposely at 
bay, 
Then let it slip to be again pursuing it ; 
They drone it, groan it, whisper it 

and shout it, 
Refute it, flout it, swear to % prove 
it, doubt it. 

XVI. 

Our saints had practised for some 
thirty years ; 
Their talk, beginning with a single stem, 
Spread like a banyan, sending down 
live piers, 
Colonies of digression, and, in them, 
Germs of yet new dispersion ; once 
by the ears, 
They could convey damnation in a hem, 



And blow the pinch of premise-prim- 

ing off 
Long syllogistic batteries, with a 

cough. 



Each had a theory that the human 
ear 
A providential tunnel was, which led 
To a huge vacuum (and surely here 
They showed some knowledge of the 
general head), 
For cant to be decanted through, a 
mere 
Auricular canal or mill-race fed 

All day and night, in sunshine and in 

shower, 
From their vast heads of milk-and- 
water-power. 

XVIII. 

The present being a peculiar case, 
Each with unwonted zeal the other 

scouted, 
Put his spurred hobby through its 

every pace, 
Pished, pshawed, poohed, horribled, 

bahed, jeered, sneered, flouted, 
Sniffed, nonsensed, infideled, fudged, 

with his face 
Looked scorn too nicely shaded to be 

shouted, 
And, with each inch of person and of 

vesture, 
Contrived to hint some most disdain- 
ful gesture. 

XIX. 

At length, when their breath's end 
was come about, 
And both could, now and then, just 
gasp " impostor ! " 
Holding their heads thrust mena- 
cingly out, 
As staggering cocks keep up their fight- 
ing posture, 
The stranger smiled and said, " Be- 
yond a doubt 
'T is fortunate, my friends, that you 
have lost your 
United parts of speech, or it had been 
Impossible for me to get between. 



xx. 



" Produce S says Nature, 
you produced ? 



- what have 



AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE. 



325 



A new strait-waistcoat for the human 
mind; 
Are you not limbed, nerved, jointed, 
arteried, juiced, 
As other men ? yet, faithless to your 
kind, 
Rather like noxious insects you are 
used 
To puncture life's fair fruit, beneath the 
rind 
Laying your creed-eggs whence in 

time there spring 
Consumers new to eat and buzz and 
sting. 



"Work! you have no conception 

how 't will sweeten 
Your views of Life and Nature, God 

and Man ; 
Had you been forced to earn what you 

have eaten, 
Your heaven had shown a less dyspep- 
tic plan ; 
At present your whole function is to 

eat ten 
And talk ten times as rapidly as you 

can ; 
Were your shape true to cosmogonic 

laws, 
You would be nothing but a pair of 

jaws. 

XXII. 

u Of all the useless beings in creation 
The earth could spare most easily you 
bakers 
Of little clay gods, formed in shape 
and fashion 
Precisely in the image of their makers ; 
Why, it would almost move a saint 
to passion, 
To see these blind and deaf, the hourly 
breakers 
Of God's own image in their brother 

men, 
Set themselves up to tell the how, 
where, when, 

XXIII. 

"Of God's existence ; one's diges- 
tion 's worse — 
So makes a god of vengeance and of 
blood ; 

Another, — but no matter, they re- 
verse 



Creation's plan, out of their own vile 

mud 
Pat up a god, and burn, drown, hang, 

or curse 
Whoever worships not ; each keeps his 

stud 
Of texts which wait with saddle on 

and bridle 
To hunt hown atheists to their ugly 

idol. 

XXIV. 

* * This, I perceive, has been your oc- 
cupation ; 
You should have been more usefully 
employed ; 

All men are bound to earn their daily 
ration, 
Where States make not that primal con- 
tract void 

By cramps and limits ; simple devas- 
tation 
Is the worm's task, and what he has 
destroyed 

His monument ; creating is man's 
work 

And that, too, something more than 
mist and murk." 

xxv. 

So having said, the youth was seen no 

more, 
And straightway our sage Brahmin, the 

philosopher, 
Cried, "That was aimed at thee, thou 

endless bore, 
Idle and useless as the growth of moss 

over 
A rotting tree-trunk!" "I would 

square that score 
Full soon," replied the Dervise, " could 

I cross over 
And catch thee by the beard. Thy 

nails I 'd trim 
And make thee work, as was advised 

by him. " 

XXVI. 

"Work? Am I not at work from 
morn till night 
Sounding the deeps of oracles umbilical 
Which for man's guidance never come 
to light, 
With all their various aptitudes, until 
I call ?" 
"And I, do I not twirl from left to 
right 



326 



AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE. 



For conscience' sake ? Is that no work ? 
Thou silly gull, 

He had thee in his eye ; 't was Ga- 
briel 

Sent to reward my faith, I know him 
well." 

XXVII. 

" 'T was Yishnu, thou vile whirli- 
gig ! " and so 
The good old quarrel was begun anew ; 
One would have sworn the sky was 
black as sloe, 
Had but the other dared to call it blue ; 
Nor were the followers who fed them 
slow 
To treat each other with their curses, 
too, 
Each hating t' other (moves it tears or 

laughter ?) 
Because he thought him sure of hell 
hereafter. 

XXVIII. 

At last some genius built a bridge of 
boats 
Over the stream, and Ahmed's zealots 
filed 
Across, upon a mission to (cut throats 
And) spread religion pure and un defiled ; 
They sowed the propagandist's wild- 
est oats, 
Cutting off all, down to the smallest 
child, 
And came back, giving thanks for 

such fat mercies, 
To find their harvest gone past prayers 
or curses. 

XXIX. 

All gone except their saint's religious 
hops, 
Which he kept up with more than com- 
mon flourish ; 
But these, however satisfying crops 
For the inner man, were not enough to 
nourish 
The body politic, which quickly drops 
Keserve in such sad junctures, and turns 
currish ; 
£>b Ahmed soon got cursed for all the 

famine 
Where'er the popular voice could edge 
a damn in. 



XXX. 

At first he pledged a miracle quite 
boldly, 
And, for a day or two, they growled and 
waited ; 
But, finding that this kind of manna 
coldly 
Sat on their stomachs, they erelong be- 
rated 
The saint for still persisting in that 
old lie, 
Till soon the whole machine of saintship 
grated, 
Ran slow, creaked, stopped, and, 

wishing him in Tophet, 
They gathered strength enough to 
stone the prophet. 

XXXI. 

Some stronger ones contrived (by 
eating leather, 
Their weaker friends, and one thing or 
another) 
The winter months of scarcity to 
weather ; 
Among these was the late saint's younger 
brother, 
Who, in the spring, collecting them 
together, 
Persuaded them that Ahmed's holy 
pother 
Had wrought in their behalf, and that 

the place 
Of Saint should be continued to his 



XXXII. 

Accordingly, 'twas settled on the 
spot 
That Allah favored that peculiar breed ; 
Beside, as all were satisfied, 't would 
not 
Be quite respectable to have the need 

Of public spiritual food forgot ; 
And so the tribe, with proper forms, de- 
creed 
That he, and, failing him, his next of 

kin, 
Forever for the people's good should 
spin. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 



AND 



OTHER POEMS. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 



TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. 

AGRO DOLCE. 

The wind is roistering out of doors, 
My windows shake and my chimney 

roars ; 
My Elmwood chimneys seem crooning 

to me, 
As of old, in their moody, minor key, 
And out of the past the hoarse wind 

blows, 
As I sit in my arm-chair, and toast my 

toes. 

"Ho! ho! nine-and-forty, " they seem 

to sing, 
" We saw you a little toddling thing. 
We knew you child and youth and man, 
A wonderful fellow to dream and plan, 
With a great thing always to come, — 

who knows? 
Well, well ! 't is some comfort to toast 

one's toes. 

" How many times have you sat at gaze 
Till the mouldering fire forgot to blaze, 
Shaping among the whimsical coals 
Fancies and figures and shining goals ! 
What matters the ashes that cover those ? 
While hickory lasts you can toast your 
toes. 

"0 dream- ship-builder ! where are they 
all, 

Your grand three-deckers, deep-chested 
and tall, 

That should crush the waves under can- 
vas piles, 

And anchor at last by the Fortunate 
Isles? 

There 's gray in your beard, the years 
turn foes, 

While you muse in your arm-chair, and 
toast your toes." 



I sit and dream that I hear, as of yore, 
My Elmwood chimneys' deep-throated 

roar ; 
If much be gone, there is much remains ; 
By the embers of loss I count my gains, 
You and yours with the best, till the 

old hope glows 
In the fanciful flame, as I toast my toes. 

Instead of a fleet of broad-browed ships, 
To send a child's armada of chips ! 
Instead of the great guns, tier on tier, 
A freight of pebbles and grass-blades 

sere ! 
"Well, maybe more love with the less 

gift goes," 
I growl, as, half moody, I toast my toes. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 

Frank-hearted hostess of the field and 

wood, 
Gypsy, whose roof is every spreading 

tree, 
June is the pearl of our New England 

year. 
Still a surprisal, though expected long, 
Her coming startles. Long she lies in 

wait, 
Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws 

coyly back, 
Then, from some southern ambush in 

the sky, 
With one great gush of blossom storms 

the world. 
A week ago the sparrow was divine ; 
The bluebird, shifting his light load of 

song 
From post to post along the cheerless 

fence, 
Was as a rhymer ere the poet come ; 
But now, rapture ! sunshine winged 

and voiced, 



330 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 



Pipe blown through by the warm wild 

breath of the West 
Shepherding his soft droves of fleecy 

cloud, 
Gladness of woods, skies, waters, all in 

one, 
The bobolink has come, and, like the 

soul 
Of the sweet season vocal in a bird, 
Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what 
Save June ! Dear June I Now God be 

praised for June. 

May is a pious fraud of the almanac, 
A ghastly parody of real Spring 
Shaped out of snow and breathed with 

eastern wind ; 
Or if, o'er-confident, she trust the date, 
And, with her handful of anemones, 
Herself as shivery, steal into the sun, 
The season need but turn his hourglass 

round, 
And Winter suddenly, like crazy Lear, 
Reels back, and brings the dead May in 

his arms, 
Her budding breasts and wan dislustred 

front 
With frosty streaks and drifts of his 

white beard 
All overblown. Then, warmly walled 

with books, 
While my wood-fire supplies the sun's 

defect, 
Whispering old forest-sagas in its 

dreams, 
I take my May down from the happv 

shelf 
Where perch the world's rare song-birds 

in a row, 
Waiting my choice to open with full 

breast, 
And beg an alms of spring-time, ne'er 

denied 
In-doors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh 

woods 
Throb thick with merle and mavis all 

the year. 

July breathes hot, sallows the crispy 

fields, 
Curls up the wan leaves of the lilac - 

hedge, 
And every eve cheats us with show of 

clouds 
That braze the horizon's western rim, or 

hang 



Motionless, with heaped canvas drooping 

idly, 

Like a dim fleet by starving men be- 
sieged, 

Conjectured half, and half descried 
afar, 

Helpless of wind, and seeming to slip 
back 

Adown the smooth curve of the oily 
sea. 

But June is full of invitations sweet, 
Forth from the chimney's yawn and 

thrice-read tomes 
To leisurely delights and sauntering 

thoughts 
That brook no ceiling narrower than the 

blue. 
The cherry, drest for bridal, at my pane 
Brushes, then listens, Will he come? 

The bee, 
All dusty as a miller, takes his toll 
Of powdery gold, and grumbles. What 

a day 
To sun me and do nothing \ Nay, I 

think 
Merely to bask and ripen is sometimes 
The student's wiser business ; the brain 
That forages all climes to line its cells, 
Ranging both worlds on lightest wings 

of wish, 
Will not distil the juices it has sucked 
To the sweet substance of pellucid 

thought, 
Except for him who hath the secret 

learned 
To mix his blood with sunshine, and to 

take 
The winds into his pulses. Hush ! 

't is he ! 
My oriole, my glance of summer fire, 
Is come at last, and, ever on the watch, 
Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly 

wound 
About the bough t( ielp his housekeep- 
ing, — 
Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing 

his luck, 
Yet fearing me who laid it in his way, 
Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs, 
Divines the providence that hides and 

helps. 
Heave, ho! Heave, ho! he whistles as 

the twine 
Slackens its hold ; once more, now ! and 

a flash 
Lightens across the sunlight to the elm 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 



331 



Where his mate dangles at her cup of 

felt. 
Nor all his booty is the thread ; he trails 
My loosened thought with it along the 

air, 
And I must follow, would I ever find 
The inward rhyme to all this wealth of 

life. 

I care not how men trace their ancestry, 
To ape or Adam ; let them please their 

whim ; 
But I in June am midway to believe 
A tree among my far progenitors, 
Such sympathy is mine with all the 

race, 
Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet 
There is between us. Surely there are 

times 
When they consent to own me of their 

kin, 
And condescend to me, and call me 

cousin, 
Murmuring faint lullabies of eldest time, 
Forgotten, and yet dumbly felt with 

thrills 
Moving the lips, though fruitless of the 

words. 
And 1 have many a lifelong leafy friend, 
Never estranged nor careful of my soul, 
That knows I hate the axe, and wel- 
comes me 
"Within his tent as if I were a bird, 
Or other free companion of the earth, 
Yet undegenerate to the shifts of men. 
Among them one, an ancient willow, 

spreads 
Eight balanced limbs, springing at once 

all round 
His deep-ridged trunk with upward slant 

diverse, 
In outline like enormous beaker, fit 
For hand of Jotun, where mid snow 

and mist 
He holds unwieldy revel. This tree, 

spared, 
I know not by what grace, — for in the 

blood 
Of our New World subduers lingers yet 
Hereditary feud with trees, they being 
(They and the red-man most) our fathers' 

foes, — 
Is one of six, a willow Pleiades, 
The seventh fallen, that lean along the 

brink 
Where the steep upland dips into the 

marsh, 



Their roots, like molten metal cooled in 

flowing, 
Stiffened in coils and runnels down the 

bank. 
The friend of all the winds, wide-armed 

he towers 
And glints his steely aglets in the 

sun, 
Or whitens fitfully with sudden bloom 
Of leaves breeze-lifted, much as when a 

shoal 
Of devious minnows wheel from where a 

pike 
Lurks balanced 'neath the lily-pads, and 

whirl 
A rood of silver bellies to the day. 

Alas ! no acorn from the British oak 

'Neath which slim fairies, tripping 
wrought those rings 

Of greenest emerald, wherewith fireside 
life 

Did with the invisible spirit of Nature 
wed, 

Was ever planted here ! No darnel 
fancy 

Might choke one useful blade in Puri- 
tan fields ; 

With horn and hoof the good old Devil 
came, 

The witch's broomstick was not contra- 
band, 

But all that superstition had of fair, 

Or piety of native sweet, was doomed. 

And if there be who nurse unholy faiths, 

Fearing their god as if he -were a 
wolf 

That snuffed round every home and was 
not seen, 

There should be some to watch and keep 
alive 

All beautiful beliefs. And such was 
that, — 

By solitary shepherd first surmised 

Under Thessalian oaks, loved by some 
maid 

Of royal stirp, that silent came and van- 
ished, 

As near her nest the hermit thrush, nor 
dared 

Confess a mortal name, — that faith 
which gave 

A Hamadryad to each tree ; and I 

Will hold it true that in this willow 
dwells 

The open-handed spirit, frank and 
blithe, 



332 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 



Of ancient Hospitality, long since, 
With ceremonious thrift, bowed out of 
doors. 

In June 't is good to lie beneath a 

tree 
While the blithe season comforts every 

sense, 
Steeps all the brain in rest, and heals 

the heart, 
Brimming it o'er with sweetness una- 
wares, 
Fragrant and silent as that rosy snow 
Wherewith the pitying apple-tree fills 

up 
And tenderly lines some last-year robin's 

nest. 
There muse I of old times, old hopes, 

old friends, — 
Old friends ! The writing of those 

words has borne 
My fancy backward to the gracious past, 
The generous past, when all was pos- 
sible, 
For all was then untried ; the years be- 
tween 
Have taught some sweet, some bitter 

lessons, none 
Wiser than this, — to spend in all things 

else, 
But of old friends to be most miserly. 
Each year to ancient friendships adds a 

ring, 
As to an oak, and precious more and 

more, 
Without deservingness or help of ours, 
They grow, and, silent, wider spread, 

each year, 
Their unbought ring of shelter or of 

shade. 
Sacred to me the lichens on the bark, 
Which Nature's milliners would scrape 

away; 
Most dear and sacred every withered 

limb! 
'T is good to set them early, for our 

faith 
Pines as we age, and, after wrinkles 

come, 
Few plant, but water dead ones with 

vain tears. 

This willow is as old to me as life ; 
And under it full often have I stretched, 
Feeling the warm earth like a thing 

alive, 
And gathering virtue in at every pore 



Till it possessed me wholly, and thought 

ceased, 
Or was transfused in something to which 

thought 
Is coarse and dull of sense. Myself was 

lost, 
Gone from me like an ache, and what 

remained 
Became a part of the universal joy. 
My soul went forth, and, mingling with 

the tree, 
Danced in the leaves ; or, floating in 

the cloud, 
Saw its white double in the stream be- 
low; 
Or else, sublimed to purer ecstasy, 
Dilated in the broad blue over all. 
I was the wind that dappled the lash 

grass, 
The tide that crept with coolness to its 

roots, 
The thin -winged swallow skating on 

the air ; 
The life that gladdened everything waa 

mine. 
Was I then truly all that I beheld ? 
Or is this stream of being but a glass 
Where the mind sees its visionary self, 
As, when the kingfisher flits o'er his 

bay, 
Across the river's hollow heaven below 
His picture flits, — another, yet the 

same ? 
But suddenly the sound of human voice 
Or footfall, like the drop a chemist 

pours, 
Doth in opacous cloud precipitate 
The consciousness that seemed but now 

dissolved 
Into an essence rarer than its own, 
And I am narrowed to myself once more. 

For here not long is solitude secure, 

Nor Fantasy left vacant to her spell. 

Here, sometimes, in this paradise of 
shade, 

Rippled with western winds, the dusty 
Tramp, / 

Seeing the treeless causey burn beyond, 

Halts to unroll his bundle of strange 
food 

And munch an unearned meal. I can- 
not help 

Liking this creature, lavish Summer's 
bedesman, 

Who from the almshouse steals when 
nights grow warm, 



UNDEK THE WILLOWS. 



333 



Himself his large estate and only charge, 
To be the guest of haystack or of hedge, 
Nobly superior to the household gear 
That forfeits us our privilege of nature. 
I bait him with my match-box and my 

pouch, 
Nor grudge the uncostly sympathy of 

smoke, 
His equal now, divinely unemployed. 
Some smack of Robin Hood is in the 

man, 
Some secret league with wild wood- 
wandering things; 
He is our ragged Duke, our barefoot 

Earl, 
By right of birth exonerate from toil, 
Who levies rent from us his tenants all, 
And serves the state by merely being. 

Here 
The Scissors -grinder, pausing, doffs his 

hat, 
And lets the kind breeze, with its deli- 
cate fan, 
Winnow the heat from out his dank 

gray hair, — 
A grimy Ulysses, a much-wandered man, 
Whose feet are known to all the popu- 
lous ways, 
And many men and manners he hath 

seen, 
Not without fruit of solitary thought. 
He, as the habit is of lonely men, — 
Unused to try the temper of their mind 
In fence with others, — positive and shy, 
Yet knows to put an edge upon his 

speech, 
Pithily Saxon in unwilling talk. 
Him I entrap with my long-suffering 

knife, 
And, while its poor blade hums away in 

sparks, 
Sharpen my wit upon his gritty mind, 
In motion set obsequious to his wheel, 
And in its quality not much unlike. 

Nor wants my tree more punctual vis- 
itors. 
The children, they who are the only rich, 
Creating for the moment, and possessing 
Whate'er they choose to feign, — for 

still with them 
Kind Fancy plays the fairy godmother, 
Strewing their lives with cheap material 
For winged horses and Aladdin's lamps, 
Pure elfin-gold, by manhood's touch 

profane 
To dead leaves disenchanted, — long ago 



Between the branches of the tree fixed 
seats, 

Making an o'erturned box their table. 
Oft 

The shrilling girls sit here between 
school hours, 

And play at What 's my thought like? 
while the boys, 

With whom the age chivalric ever bides, 

Pricked on hy knightly spur of female 
eyes, 

Climb high to swing and shout on peril- 
ous boughs, 

Or, from the willow's armory equipped 

With musket dumb, green banner, edge- 
less sword, 

Make good the rampart of their tree- 
redoubt 

'Gainst eager British storming from be- 
low, 

And keep alive the tale of Bunker's 
Hill. 

Here, too, the men that mend our vil- 
lage ways, 

Vexing McAdam's ghost with pounded 
slate, 

Their nooning take; much noisy talk 
they spend 

On horses and their ills ; and, as John 
Bull 

Tells of Lord This or That, who was his 
friend, 

So these make boast of intimacies long 

With famous teams, and add large esti- 
mates, 

By competition swelled from mouth to 
mouth, 

Of how much they could draw, till one, 
ill pleased 

To have his legend overbid, retorts : 

' ' You take and stretch truck-horses in 
a string 

From here to Long Wharf end, one 
thing I know, 

Not heavy neither, they could never 
draw, — 

Ensign's long bow ! " Then laughter 
loud and long. 

So they in their leaf-shadowed micro- 
cosm 

Image the larger world ; for wheresoe'er 

Ten men are gathered, the observant eye 

Will find mankind in little, as the stars 

Glide up and set, and all the heavens 
revolve 

In the small welkin of a drop of dew. 



334 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 



I love to enter pleasure by a postern, 
Not the broad popular gate that gulps 

the mob ; 
To find my theatres in roadside nooks, 
Where men are actors, and suspect it 

not; 
Where Nature all unconscious works 

her will, 
And every passion moves with human 

gait, 
Unhampered by the buskin or the train. 
Hating the crowd, where we gregarious 

men 
Lead lonely lives, I love society, 
Nor seldom find the best with simple 

souls 
Unswerved by culture from their native 

bent, 
The ground we meet on being primal 

man 
And nearer the deep bases of our lives. 

But 0, half heavenly, earthly half, my 
soul, 

Canst thou from those late ecstasies 
descend, 

Thy lips still wet with the miraculous 
wine 

That transubstantiates all thy baser stuff 

To such divinity that soul and sense, 

Once more commingled in their source, 
are lost, — 

Canst thou descend to quench a vulgar 
thirst 

With the mere dregs and rinsings of the 
world ? 

Well, if my nature find her pleasure 
so, 

I am content, nor need to blush; I 
take 

My little gift of being clean from God, 

Not haggling for a better, holding it 

Good as was ever any in the world, 

My days as good and full of miracle. 

I pluck my nutriment from any bush, 

Finding out poison as the first men 
did 

By tasting and then suffering, if I must. 

Sometimes my bush burns, and some- 
times it is 

A leafless wilding shivering by the wall ; 

But I have known when winter bar- 
berries 

Pricked the effeminate palate with sur- 
prise 

Of savor whose mere harshness seemed 
divine. 



0, benediction of the higher mood 
And human-kindness of the lower ! for 

both 
I will be grateful while I live, nor ques- 
tion 
The wisdom that hath made us what we 

are, 
With such large range as from the ale- 
house bench 
Can reach the stars and be with both at 

home. 
They tell us we have fallen on prosy 

days, 
Condemned to glean the leavings of 

earth's feast 
Where gods and heroes took delight of 

old; 
But though our lives, moving in one 

dull round 
Of repetition infinite, become 
Stale as a newspaper once read, and 

though 
History herself, seen in her workshop, 

seem 
To have lost the art that dyed those 

glorious panes, 
Rich with memorial shapes of saint and 

sage, 
That pave with splendor the Past's 

dusky aisles, — 
Panes that enchant the light of common 

day 
With colors costly as the blood of 

kings, 
Till with ideal hues it edge our 

thought, — 
Yet while the world is left, while nature 

lasts, 
And man the best of nature, there shall 

be 
Somewhere contentment for these human 

hearts, 
Some freshness, some unused material 
For wonder and for song. I lose myself 
In other ways where solemn guide-posts 

sa y> 

This way to Knowledge, This way to 
Repose, 

But here, here only, I am ne'er be- 
trayed, 

For every by-path leads me to my love. 

God's passionless reformers, influences, 
That purify and heal and are not seen, 
Shall man say whence your virtue is, or 

how 
Ye make medicinal the wayside weed? 



DARA. 



335 



I know that sunshine, through whatever 

rift 
How shaped it matters not, upon my 

walls 
Paints discs as perfect-rounded as its 

source, 
And, like its antitype, the ray divine, 
However finding entrance, perfect still, 
Repeats the image unimpaired of God. 

"We, who hy shipwreck only find the 
shores 

Of divine wisdom, can but kneel at 
first ; 

Can but exult to feel beneath our feet, 

That long stretched vainly down the 
yielding deeps, 

The shock and sustenance of solid earth ; 

Inland afar we see what temples gleam 

Through immemorial stems of sacred 
groves, 

And we conjecture shining shapes there- 
in; 

Yet for a space we love to wonder here 

Among the shells and sea- weed of the 
beach. 



So mused I once within my willow-tent 
One brave June morning, when the 

bluff northwest, 
Thrusting aside a dank and snuffling 

day 
That made us bitter at our neighbors' 

sins, 
Brimmed the great cup of heaven with 

sparkling cheer 
And roared a lusty stave ; the sliding 

Charles, 
Blue toward the west, and bluer and 

more blue, 
Living and lustrous as a woman's eyes 
Look once and look no more, with south- 
ward curve 
Ran crinkling sunniness, like Helen's 

hair 
Glimpsed in Elysium, insubstantial 

gold; 
From blossom-clouded orchards, far 

away 
The bobolink tinkled; the deep mead- 
ows flowed 
"With multitudinous pulse of light and 

shade 
Against the bases of the southern hills, 
"While here and there a drowsy island 

rick 



Slept and its shadow slept ; the wooden 

bridge 
Thundered, and then was silent ; on the 

roofs 
The sun-warped shingles rippled with 

the heat ; 
Summer on field and hill, in heart and 

brain, 
All life washed clean in this high tide of 

June. 

DARA. 

"When Persia's sceptre trembled in a 

hand 
"Wilted with harem-heats, and all the 

land 
Was hovered over by those vulture ills 
That snuff decaying empire from afar, 
Then, with a nature balanced as a star, 
Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills. 

He who had governed fleecy subjects 

well 
Made his own village by the selfsame 

spell 
Secure and quiet as a guarded fold ; 
Then, gathering strength by slow and 

wise degrees 
Under his sway, to neighbor villages 
Order returned, and faith and justice 

old. 

Now when it fortuned that a king more 
wise 

Endued the realm with brain and hands 
and eyes, 

He sought on every side men brave and 
just ; 

And having heard our mountain shep- 
herd's praise, 

How he refilled the mould of elder days, 

To Dara gave a satrapy in trust. 

So Dara shepherded a province wide, 
Nor in his viceroy's sceptre took more 

pride 
Than in his crook before; but envy 

finds 
More food in cities than on mountains 

bare ; 
And the frank sun of natures clear and 

rare 
Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish 

minds. 



336 



THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. 



Soon it was hissed into the royal ear, 
That, though wise Dara's province, year 

by year, 
Like a great sponge, sucked wealth and 

plenty up, 
Yet, when he squeezed it at the king's 

behest, 
Some yellow drops, more rich than all 

the rest, 
Went to the filling of his private cup. 

For proof, they said, that, wheresoe'er 

he went, 
A chest, beneath whose weight the camel 

bent, 
Went with him ; and no mortal eye had 

seen 
What was therein, save only Dara's 

own ; 
But, when 't was opened, all his tent 

was known 
To glow and lighten with heaped jewels' 

sheen. 

The King set forth for Dara's province 

straight ; 
There, as was fit, outside the city's gate, 
The viceroy met him with a stately train, 
And there, with archers circled, close at 

hand, 
A camel with the chest was seen to 

stand : 
the King's brow reddened, for the guilt 

was plain. 

" Open me here," he cried, "this treas- 
ure-chest ! " 

'T was done ; and only a worn shepherd's 
vest 

Was found therein. Some blushed and 
hung the head ; 

Not Dara ; open as the sky's blue roof 

He stood, and " my lord, behold the 
proof 

That I was faithful to my trust," he 
said. 

* ' To govern men, lo all the spell I had ! 
My soul in these rude vestments ever 

clad 
Still to the unstained past kept true and 

leal, 
Still on these plains could breathe her 

mountain air, 
And fortune's heaviest gifts serenely 

bear, 
Which bend men from their truth and 

make them reel. 



" For ruling wisely I should have small 

skill, 
Were I not lord of simple Dara still ; 
That sceptre kept, I could not lose my 

way." 
Strange dew in royal eyes grew round 

and bright, 
And strained the throbbing lids ; before 

't was night 
Two added provinces blest Dara's sway. 



THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. 

The snow had begun in the gloaming, 

And busily all the night 
Had been heaping field and highway 

With a silence deep and white. 

Every pine and fir and hemlock 
Wore ermine too dear for an earl, 

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree 
Was ridged inch deep with pearl. 

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara 
Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, 

The stiff rails were softened to swan's- 
down, 
And still fluttered down the snow. 

I stood and watched by the window 
The noiseless work of the sky, 

And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, 
Like brown leaves whirling by. 

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn 
Where a little headstone stood ; 

How the flakes were folding it gently, 
As did robins the babes in the wood. 

Up spoke our own little Mabel, 

Saying, "Father, who makes it 
snow ?" 

And I told of the good All-father 
Who cares for us here below. 

Again I looked at the snow-fall, 
And thought of the leaden sky 

That arched o'er our first great sorrow, 
When that mound was heaped so high. 

I remembered the gradual patience 
That fell from that cloud like snow, 

Flake by flake, healing and hiding 
The scar of our deep-plunged woe. 



THE SINGING LEAVES. 



337 



And again to the child I whispered, 
"The snow that husheth all, 

Darling, the merciful Father 
Alone can make it fall ! " 

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed 
her; 
And she, kissing back, could not 
know 
That my kiss was given to her sister, 
Folded close under deepening snow. 



THE SINGING LEAVES. 

A BALLAD. 

I. 

"What fairings will ye that I bring ? " 
Said the King to his daughters three ; 

1 ' For I to Vanity Fair am boun, 
Now say what shall they be ? " 

Then up and spake the eldest daughter, 

That lady tall and grand : 
" 0, bring me pearls and diamonds great, 

And gold rings for my hand." 

Thereafter spake the second daughter, 
That was both white and red : 

"For me bring silks that will stand 
alone, 
And a gold comb for my head. " 

Then came the turn of the least daugh- 
ter, 
That was whiter than thistle-down, 
And among the gold of her blithesome 
hair 
Dim shone the golden crown. 

" There came a bird this morning, 
And sang 'neath my bower eaves, 

Till I dreamed, as his music made me, 
'Ask thou for the Singing Leaves.' " 

Then the brow of the King swelled 
crimson 

With a flush of angry scorn : 
" Well have ye spoken, my two eldest, 

And chosen as ye were born ; 

" But she, like a thing of peasant race, 
That is happy binding the sheaves " ; 
Then he saw her dead mother in her 
face, 
And said, " Thou shalt have thy 
leaves." 

22 



II. 

He mounted and rode three days and 
nights 
Till he came to Vanity Fair, 
And 't was easy to buy the gems and 
the silk, 
But no Singing Leaves were there. 

Then deep in the greenwood rode he, 

And asked of every tree, 
" 0, if you have ever a Singing Leaf, 

I pray you give it me ! " 

But the trees all kept their counsel, 
And never a word said they, 

Only there sighed from the pine-tops 
A music of seas far away. 

Only the pattering aspen 

Made a sound of growing rain, 

That fell ever faster and faster, 
Then faltered to silence again. 

" 0, where shall I find a little foot-page 
That would win both hose and shoon, 

And will bring to me the Singing Leaves 
If they grow under the moon ? " 

Then lightly turned him Walter the 
page, 

By the stirrup as he ran : 
" Now pledge you me the truesome word 

Of a king and gentleman, 

" That you will give me the first, first 
thing 
You meet at your castle-gate, 
And the Princess shall get the Singing 
Leaves, 
Or mine be a traitor's fate." 

The King's head dropt upon his breast 

A moment, as it might be ; 
'T w 7 ill be my dog, he thought, and said, 

"My faith I plight to thee." 

Then Walter took from next his heart 

A packet small and thin, 
"Now give you this to the Princes's 
Anne, 

The Singing Leaves are therein." 



As the King rode in at his castle-gate, 
A maiden to meet him ran, 



338 



THE FINDING OF THE LYRE. 



And "Welcome, father ! " she laughed 
and cried 
Together, the Princess Anne. 

" Lo, here the Singing Leaves," quoth 
he, 

"And woe, but they cost me dear ! " 
She took the packet, and the smile 

Deepened down beneath the tear. 

It deepened down till it reached her 
heart, 

And then gushed up again, 
And lighted her tears as the sudden sun 

Transfigures the summer rain. 

And the first Leaf, when it was opened, 
Sang : " I am Walter the page t 

And the songs I sing 'neath thy window 
Are my only heritage." 

And the second Leaf sang : ' ' But in the 
land 

That is neither on earth or sea, 
My lute and I are lords of more 

Than thrice this kingdom's fee." 

And the third Leaf sang, "Be mine ! 
"Be mine !" 

And ever it sang, " Be mine !" 
Then sweeter it sang and ever sweeter, 

And said, " I am thine, thine, thine ! " 

At the first Leaf she grew pale enough, 
At the second she turned aside, 

At the third, 't was as if a lily flushed 
With a rose's red heart's tide. 

" Good counsel gave the bird," said she, 
" I have my hope thrice o'er, 

For they sing to my very heart," she 
said, 
* ' And it sings to them evermore. ' ' 

She brought to him her beauty and 
truth, 
But and broad earldoms three, 
And he made her queen of the broader 
lands 
• He held of his lute in fee. 



SEA-WEED. 

Not always unimpeded can I pray, 
Nor, pitying saint, thine intercession 

claim ; 
Too closely clings the burden of the day, 



And all the mint and anise that I pay 
But swells my debt and deepens my 
self- blame. 

Shall I less patience have than Thou, 

who know 
That Thou revisit'st all who wait for 

thee, 
Nor only fill'st the unsounded deeps 

below, 
But dost refresh with punctual overflow 
The rifts where unregarded mosses be ? 

The drooping sea-weed hears, in night 
abyssed, 

Far and more far the wave's receding 
shocks, 

Nor doubts, for all the darkness and the 
mist, 

That the pale shepherdess will keep her 
tryst, 

And shoreward lead again her foam- 
fleeced flocks. 

For the same wave that rims the Carib 
shore 

With momentary brede of pearl and 
gold, 

Goes hurrying thence to gladden with 
its roar 

Lorn weeds bound fast on rocks of Lab- 
rador, 

By love divine on one sweet errand 
rolled. 

And, though Thy healing waters far 

withdraw, 
I, too, can wait and feed on hope of 

Thee 
And of the dear recurrence of Thy law, 
Sure that the parting grace my morning 

saw 
Abides its time to come in search of me. 

THE FINDING OF THE LYIT 

There lay upon the ocean's shore 
What once a tortoise served to cover. 
A year and more, with rush and roar, 
The surf had rolled it over, 
Had played with it, and flung it by, 
As wind and weather might decide it, 
Then tossed it high where sand-drifts * 

dry 
Cheap burial might provide it. 



NEW-YEAR'S EVE. 1850. — AL FRESCO. 



339 



It rested there to bleach or tan, 

The rains had soaked, the suns had 

burned it; 
With man}' a ban the fisherman 
Had stumbled o'er and spurned it ; 
And there the fisher-girl would stay, 
Conjecturing with her brother 
How in their play the poor estray 
Might serve some use or other. 

So there it lay, through wet and dry, 

As empty as the last new sonnet, 

Till by and by came Mercury, 

And, having mused upon it, 

"Why, here," cried he, "the thing of 

things 
In shape, material, and dimension ! 
Give it but strings, and, lo, it sings, 
A wonderful invention ! " 

So said, so done ; the chords he strained, 
And, as his fingers o'er them hovered, 
The shell disdained a soul had gained, 
The lyre had been discovered. 
empty world that round us lies, 
Dead shell, of soul and thought forsaken, 
Brought we but eyes like Mercury's, 
In thee what songs should waken ! 



NEW-YEAR'S EVE. 1850. 

This is the midnight of the century, — 

hark ! 
Through aisle and arch of Godminster 

have gone 
Twelve throbs that tolled the zenith of 

the dark, 
And mornward now the starry hands 

move on ; 
" Mornward ! " the angelic watchers say, 
" Passed is the sorest trial ; i 
N^ " 'ot of man can stay 
and upon the dial ; . 
is the dark stem of the lily Day." 

If we, who watched in valleys here below, 
Toward streaks, misdeemed of morn, our 

faces turned 
When volcan glares set all the east 

aglow, — 
We are not poorer that we wept and 

yearned ; 
Though earth swing wide from God's 

intent, 



And though no man nor nation 

Will move with full consent 

In heavenly gravitation, 

Yet by one Sun is every orbit bent. 



FOR AN AUTOGRAPH. 

Though old the thought and oft ex- 

prest, 
'T is his at last who says it best, — 
I '11 try my fortune with the rest. 

Life is a leaf of paper white 
Whereon each one of us may write 
His word or two, and then comes night. 

" Lo, time and space enough," we cry, 
" To write an epic ! " so we try 
Our nibs upon the edge, and die. 

Muse not which way the pen to hold, 
Luck hates the slow and loves the bold, 
Soon come the darkness and the cold. 

Greatly begin ! though thou have time 
But for a line, be that sublime, — 
Not failure, but low aim, is crime. 

Ah, with what lofty hope we came J 
But we forget it, dream of fame, 
And scrawl, as I do here, a name. 



AL FRESCO. 

The dandelions and buttercups 

Gild all the lawn ; the drowsy bee 

Stumbles among the clover-tops, 

And summer sweetens all but me : 

Away, unfruitful lore of books, 

For whose vain idiom we reject 

The soul's more native dialect, 

Aliens among the birds and brooks, 

Dull to interpret or conceive 

What gospels lost the woods retrieve ! 

Away, ye critics, city-bred, 

Who set man-traps of thus and so, 

And in the first man's footsteps tread, 

Like those who toil through drifted 

snow ! _ ~ 

Away, my poets, whose sweet spell 
Can make a garden of a cell ! 
I need ye not, for I to-day 
Will make one long sweet verse of play. 






340 



MASACCIO. 



Snap, chord of manhood's tenser 

strain ! 
To-day I will be a boy again ; 
The mind's pursuing element, 
Like a bow slackened and unbent, 
In some dark corner shall be leant. 
The robin sings, as of old, from the 

limb! 
The catbird croons in the lilac-bush ! 
Through the dim arbor, himself more 

dim, 
Silently hops the hermit- thrush, 
The withered leaves keep dumb for him ; 
The irreverent buccaneering bee 
Hath stormed and rifled the nunnery 
Of the lily, and scattered the sacred floor 
With haste-dropt gold from shrine to 

door; 
There, as of yore, 
The rich, milk-tingeing buttercup 
Its tiny polished urn holds up, 
Filled with ripe summer to the edge, 
The sun in his own wine to pledge ; 
And our tall elm, this hundredth year 
Doge of our leafy Venice here, 
Who, with an annual ring, doth wed 
The blue Adriatic overhead, 
Shadows with his palatial mass 
The deep canals of flowing grass. 

vmestranged birds and bees ! 
face of nature always true ! 
never-unsympathizing trees ! 
never-rejecting roof of blue, 
Whose rash disherison never falls 
On us unthinking prodigals, 
Yet who con vie test all our ill, 
So grand and unappeasable ! 
Methinks my heart from each of these 
Plucks part of childhood back again, 
Long there imprisoned, as the breeze 
Doth every hidden odor seize 
Of wood and water, hill and plain ; 
Once more am I admitted peer 
In the upper house of Nature here, 
And feel through all my pulses run 
The royal blood of breeze and sun. 

Upon these elm-arched solitudes 
No hum of neighbor toil intrudes ; 
The only hammer that I hear 
Is wielded by the woodpecker, 
The single noisy calling his 
In all our leaf-hid Sybaris ; 
The good old time, close-hidden here, 
Persists, a loyal cavalier, 



While Roundheads prim, with point of 

fox, 
Probe wainscot-chink and empty box ; 
Here no hoarse-voiced iconoclast 
Insults thy statues, royal Past ; 
Myself too prone the axe to wield, 
I touch the silver side of the shield 
With lance reversed, and challenge 

peace, 
A willing convert of the trees. 

How chanced it that so long I tost 
A cable's length from this rich coast, 
With foolish anchors hugging close 
The beckoning weeds and lazy ooze, 
Nor had the wit to wreck before 
On this enchanted island's shore, 
Whither the current of the sea, 
With wiser drift, persuaded me ? 

0, might we but of such rare days 
Build up the spirit's dwelling-place! 
A temple of so Parian stone 
Would brook a marble god alone, 
The statue of a perfect life, 
Far-shrined from earth's bestaining 

strife. 
Alas ! though such felicity 
In our vext world here may not be, 
Yet, as sometimes the peasant's hut 
Shows stones which old religion cut 
With text inspired, or mystic sign 
Of the Eternal and Divine, 
Torn from the consecration deep 
Of some fallen nunnery's mossy sleep, 
So, from the ruins of this day 
Crumbling in golden dust away, 
The soul one gracious block may draw, 
Carved with some fragment of the law, 
Which, set in life's uneven wall, 
Old benedictions may recall, 
And lure some nunlike thoughts to take 
Their dwelling here for memory's sake. 



MASACCIO. 

(IN the beancacci chapel.) 

He came to Florence long ago, 

And painted here these walls, that shone 

For Raphael and for Angelo, 

With secrets deeper than his own, 

Then shrank into the dark again, 

And died, we know not how or when. 

The shadows deepened, and I turned 
Half sadly from the fresco grand ; 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 



■GODMINSTER CHIMES. 



341 



"And is this," mused I, "all ye earned, 
High- vaulted brain and cunning hand, 
That ye to greater men could teach 
The skill yourselves could never reach ?" 

"And who were they," I mused, "that 

wrought 
Through pathless wilds, with labor long, 
The highways of our daily thought ? 
Who reared those towers of earliest song 
That lift us from the throng to peace 
Remote in sunny silences ?" 

Out clanged the Ave Mary bells, 
And to my heart this message came : 
Each clamorous throat among them tells 
What strong -souled martyrs died in 

flame 
To make it possible that thou 
Shouldst here with brother sinners bow. 

Thoughts that great hearts once broke 

for, we 
Breathe cheaply in the common air ; 
The dust we trample heedlessly 
Throbbed once in saints and heroes rare, 
Who perished, opening for their race 
New pathways to the commonplace. 

Henceforth, when rings the health to 

those 
Who live in story and in song, 
nameless dead, that now repose 
Safe in Oblivion's chambers strong, 
One cup of recognition true 
Shall silently be drained to you ! 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

My coachman, in the moonlight there, 
Looks through the side-light of the 
door; 

I hear him with his brethren swear, 
As I could do, — but only more. 

Flattening his nose against the pane, 
He envies me my brilliant lot, 

Breathes on his aching fists in vain, 
And dooms me to a place more hot. 

He sees me in to supper go, 
A silken wonder by my side, 

Bare arms, bare shoulders, and a row 
Of flounces, for the door too wide. 



He thinks how happy is my arm 

'Neath its white-gloved and jewelled 
load ; 

And wishes me some dreadful harm, 
Hearing the merry corks explode. 

Meanwhile I inly curse the bore 
Of hunting still the same old coon, 

And envy him, outside the door, 
In golden quiets of the moon. 

The winter wind is not so cold 

As the bright smile he sees me win, 

Nor the host's oldest wine so old 
As our poor gabble sour and thin. 

I envy him th e ungyved prance 

By which his freezing feet he warms, 

And drag my lady's-chains and dance 
The galley-slave of dreary forms. 

0, could he have my share of din, 
And I his quiet ! — past a doubt 

'T would still be one man bored within, 
And just another bored without. 



GODMINSTER CHIMES. 

WRITTEN IN" AID OF A CHIME OF BELLS 
FOR CHRIST CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE. 

Godminster? Is it Fancy's play? 

I know not, but the word 
Sings in my heart, nor can I say 

Whether 't was dreamed or heard ; 
Yet fragrant in my mind it clings 

As blossoms after rain, 
And builds of half-remembered things 

This vision in my brain. 

I 

Through aisles of long-drawn centuries 

My spirit walks in thought, 
And to that symbol lifts its eyes 

Which God's own pity wrought ; 
From Calvary shines the altar's gleam, 

The Church's East is there, 
The Ages one great minster seem, 

That throbs with praise and prayer. 

And all the way from Calvary down 

The carven pavement shows 
Their graves who won the martyr's 
crown 

And safe in God repose ; 
The saints of many a warring creed 

Who now in heaven have learned 



342 



THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 



That all paths to the Father lead 
Where Self the feet have spurned. 

And, as the mystic aisles I pace, 

By aureoled workmen built, 
Lives ending at the Cross I trace 

Alike through grace and guilt ; 
One Mary bathes the blessed feet 

With ointment from her eyes, 
With spikenard one, and both are sweet, 

For both are sacrifice. 

Moravian hymn and Roman chant 

In one devotion blend, 
To speak the soul's eternal want 

Of Him, the inmost friend ; 
One prayer soars cleansed with martyr 
fire, 

One choked with sinner's tears, 
In heaven both meet in one desire, 

And God one music hears. 

Whilst thus I dream, the bells clash out 

Upon the Sabbath air, 
Each seems a hostile faith to shout, 

A selfish form of prayer ; 
My dream is shattered, yet who knows 

' But in that heaven so near 
These discords find harmonious close 

In God's atoning ear ? 

chime of sweet Saint Charity, 

Peal soon that Easter morn 
When Christ for all shall risen be, 

And in all hearts new-born ! 
That Pentecost when utterance clear 

To all men shall be given, 
When all shall say My Brother here, 

And hear My Son in heaven ! 



THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 

Who hath not been a poet ? Who hath 

not, 
With life's new quiver full of winged 

years, 
Shot at a venture, and then, following 

on, 
Stood doubtful at the Parting of the 

Ways? 

There once I stood in dream, and as I 

paused, 
Looking this way and that, came forth 

to me 



The figure of a woman veiled, that said, 
"My name is Duty, turn and follow 

me" ; 
Something there was that chilled me in 

her voice ; 
I felt Youth's hand grow slack and cold 

in mine, 
As if to be withdrawn, and I replied : 
" 0, leave the hot wild heart within my 

breast ! 
Duty comes soon enough, too soon comes 

Death ; 
This slippery globe of life whirls of itself, 
Hasting our youth away into the dark ; 
These senses, quivering with electric 

heats, 
Too soon will show, like nests on wintry 

boughs 
Obtrusive emptiness, too palpable wreck, 
Which whistling north-winds line with 

downy snow 
Sometimes, or fringe with foliaged rime, 

in vain, 
Thither the singing birds no more re- 
turn." 

Then glowed to me a maiden from the 

left, 
With bosom half disclosed, and naked 

arms 
More white and undulant than necks of 

swans ; 
And all before her steps an influence ran 
Warm as the whispering South that 

opens buds 
And swells the la.ggard sails of Northern 

May. 
"I am called Pleasure, come with me!" 

she said, 
Then laughed, and shook out sunshine 

from her hair, 
Not only that, but, so it seemed, shook 

out 
All memory too, and all the moonlit 

past, 
Old loves, old aspirations, and old 

dreams, 
More beautiful for being old and gone. 

So we two went together ; downward 

sloped 
The path through yellow meads, or so I 

dreamed, 
Yellow with sunshine and young green, 

but I 
Saw naught nor heard, shut up in one 

close joy; 



THE PARTING OF THE "WAYS. 



343 



I only felt the hand within my own, 
Transmuting all my blood to golden fire, 
Dissolving all my brain in throbbing 
mist. 

Suddenly shrank the hand ; suddenly 

burst 
A cry that split the torpor of my brain, 
And as the first sharp thrust of lightning 

loosens 
From the heaped cloud its rain, loosened 

my sense : 
" Save me ! " it thrilled ; " 0, hide me ! 

there is Death ! 
Death the divider, the unmerciful, 
That digs his pitfalls under Love and 

Youth 
And covers Beauty up in the cold 

ground ; 
Horrible Death ! bringer of endless dark ; 
Let him not see me ! hide me in thy 

breast ! " 
Thereat I strove to clasp her, but my 

arms 
Met only what slipped crumbling down, 

and fell, 
A handful of gray ashes, at my feet. 

I would have fled, I would have followed 

back 
That pleasant path we came, but all was 

changed ; 
Rocky the way, abrupt, and hard to find ; 
Yet I toiled on, and, toiling on, I 

thought, 
"That way lies Youth, and Wisdom, 

and all Good ; 
For only by unlearning "Wisdom comes 
And climbing backward to diviner 

Youth ; 
What the world teaches profits to the 

world, 
What the soul teaches profits to the soul, 
Which then first stands erect with God- 
ward face, 
When she lets fall her pack of withered 

facts, 
The gleanings of the outward eye and 

ear, 
And looks and listens with her finer 

sense ; 
Nor Truth nor Knowledge cometh from 

without." 

After long weary days I stood again 
And waited at the Parting of the Ways ; 
Again the figure of a woman veiled 



Stood forth and beckoned, and I followed 

now : 
Down to no bower of roses led the 

path, 
But through the streets of towns where 

chattering Cold 
Hewed wood for fires whose glow was 

owned and fenced, 
Where Nakedness wove garments of 

warm wool 
Not for itself ; — or through the fields it 

led 
Where Hunger reaped the unattainable 

grain, 
Where Idleness enforced saw idle lands, 
Leagues of unpeopled soil, the common 

earth, 
Walled round with paper against God 

and Man. 
"I cannot look," I groaned,' "at only 

these ; 
The heart grows hardened with perpet- 
ual wont, 
And palters with a feigned necessity, 
Bargaining with itself to be content ; 
Let me behold thy face." 

The Form replied : 
' * Men follow Duty, never overtake ; 
Duty nor lifts her veil nor looks behind. " 
But, as she spake, a loosened lock of 

hair 
Slipped from beneath her hood, and I, 

who looked 
To see it gray and thin, saw amplest 

gold; 
Not that dull metal dug from sordid 

earth, 
But such as the retiring sunset flood 
Leaves heaped on bays and capes of 

island cloud. 
" Guide divine," I prayed, " although 

not yet 
I may repair the virtue which I feel 
Gone out at touch of untuned things 

and foul 
With draughts of Beauty, yet declare 

how soon ! " 

" Faithless and faint of heart," the voice 
returned, 

" Thou see'st no beauty save thou make 
it first ; 

Man, Woman, Nature, each is but a 
glass 

Where the soul sees the image of her- 
self, 

Visible echoes, offsprings of herself. 



344 



ALADDIN. — AN INVITATION. 



But, since thou need'st assurance of how 

soon, 
Wait till that angel comes who opens 

all, 
The reconciler, he who lifts the veil, 
The reuniter, the rest-bringer, Death." 

I waited, and methought he came ; but 
how, 

Or in what shape, I doubted, for no 
sign, 

By touch or mark, he gave me as he 
passed : 

Only I knew a lily that I held 

Snapt short below the head and shriv- 
elled up ; 

Then turned my Guide and looked at 
me unveiled, 

And I beheld no face of matron stern, 

But that enchantment I had followed 
erst, 

Only more fair, more clear to eye and 
brain, 

Heightened and chastened by a house- 
hold charm ; 

She smiled, and " Which is fairer," said 
her eyes, 

" The hag's unreal Florimel or mine ?" 



ALADDIN. 

When I was a beggarly boy, 

And lived in a cellar damp, 
I had not a friend nor a toy, 

But I had Aladdin's lamp ; 
When I could not sleep for cold, 

I had fire enough in my brain, 
And builded, with roofs of gold, 

My beautiful castles in Spain ! 

Since then I have toiled day and night, 

I have money and power good store, 
But I 'd give all my lamps of silver 
bright, 

For the one that is mine no more ; 
Take, Fortune, whatever you choose, 

You gave, and may snatch again ; 
I have nothing 't would pain me to lose, 

For I own no more castles in Spain ! 



AN INVITATION. 

Nine years have slipt like hour-glass 

sand 
From life's still-emptying globe away, 



Since last, dear friend, I clasped your 

hand, 
And stood upon the impoverished land, 
Watching the steamer down the bay. 

I held the token which you gave, 
While slowly the smoke-pennon curled 
O'er the vague rim 'tween sky and wave, 
And shut the distance like a grave, 
Leaving me in the colder world. 

The old worn world of hurry and heat, 
The young, fresh world of thought and 

scope, 
While you, where beckoning billows 

fleet 
Climb far sky-beaches still and sweet, 
Sank wavering down the ocean-slope. 

You sought the new world in the old, 
I found the old world in the new, 
All that onr human hearts can hold, 
The inward world of deathless mould, 
The same that Father Adam knew. 

He needs no ship to cross the tide, 
Who, in the lives about him, sees 
Fair window-prospects opening wide 
O'er history's fields on every side, 
To Ind and Egypt, Rome and Greece. 

Whatever moulds of various brain 
E'er shaped the world to weal or woe, 
Whatever empires' wax and wane, 
To him that hath not eyes in vain, 
Our village-microcosm can show. 

Come back our ancient walks to tread, 
Dear haunts of lost or scattered friends, 
Old Harvard's scholar- factories red, 
Where song and smoke and laughter 

sped 
The nights to proctor-haunted ends. 

Constant are all our former loves, 
Unchanged the icehouse-girdled pond, 
Its hemlock glooms, its shadowy coves, 
Where floats the coot and never moves, 
Its slopes of long- tamed green beyond. 

Our old familiars are not laid, 

Though snapt our wands and sunk our 

books ; 
They beckon, not to be gainsaid, 
Where, round broad meads that mowers 

wade, 
The Charles his steel-blue sickle crooks. 



THE NOMADES. 



345 



Where, as the cloudbergs eastward blow, 
From glow to gloom the hillsides shift 
Their plumps of orchard-trees arow, 
Their lakes of rye that wave and flow, 
Their snowy whiteweed's summer drift. 

There have we watched the West unfurl 

A cloud Byzantium newly born, 

With flickering spires and domes of 

pearl, 
And vapory surfs that crowd and curl 
Into the sunset's Golden Horn. 

There, as the flaming Occident 
Burned slowly down to ashes gray, 
Night pitched o'erhead her silent tent, 
And glimmering gold fromHespersprent 
Upon the darkened river lay, 

Where a twin sky but just before 
Deepened, and double swallows skimmed, 
And, from a visionary shore, 
Hung visioned trees, that more and 

more 
Grew dusk as those above were dimmed. 

Then eastward saw we slowly grow 
Clear-edged the lines of roof and spire, 
While great elm-masses blacken slow, 
And linden-ricks their round heads 

show 
Against a flush of widening fire. 

Doubtful at first and far away, 

The moon-flood creeps more wide and 

wide ; 
Up a ridged beach of cloudy gray, 
Curved round the east as round a bay, 
It slips and spreads its gradual tide. 

Then suddenly, in lurid mood, 

The moon looms large o'er town and 

field 
As upon Adam, red like blood, 
'Tween him and Eden's happy wood, 
Glared the commissioned angel's shield. 

Or let us seek the seaside, there 
To wander idly as we list, 
Whether, on rocky headlands bare, 
Sharp cedar-horns, like breakers, tear 
The trailing fringes of gray mist, 

Or whether, under skies full flown, 
The brightening surfs, with foamy din, 
Their breeze-caught forelocks backward 
blown, 



Against the beach's yellow zone, 
Curl slow, and plunge forever in. 

And, as we watch those canvas towers 
That lean along the horizon's rim, 
"Sail on," I'll say; "may sunniest 

hours 
Convoy you from this land of ours, 
Since from my side you bear not him ! " 

For years thrice three, wise Horace said, 
A poem rare let silence bind ; 
And love may ripen in the shade, 
Like ours, for nine long seasons laid 
In deepest arches of the mind. 

Come back ! Not ours the Old World's 

good, 
The Old World's ill, thank God, not 

ours ; 
But here, far better understood, 
The days enforce our native mood, 
And challenge all our manlier powers. 

Kindlier to me the place of birth 
That first my tottering footsteps trod ; 
There may be fairer spots of earth, 
But all their glories are not worth 
The virtue of the native sod. 

Thence climbs an influence more benign 
Through pulse and nerve, through heart 

and brain ; 
Sacred to me those fibres fine 
That first clasped earth.. 0, ne'er be 

mine 
The alien sun and alien rain ! 

These nourish not like homelier glows 
Or waterings of familiar skies, 
And nature fairer blooms bestows 
On the heaped hush of wintry snows, 
In pastures dear to childhood's eyes, 

Than where Italian earth receives 
The partial sunshine's ampler boons, 
Where vines carve friezes 'neath the 

eaves, 
And, in dark firmaments of leaves, 
The orange lifts its golden moons. 



THE NOMADES. 

What Nature makes in any mood 
To me is warranted for good, 
Though long before I learned to see 
She did not set us moral theses, 



346 



SELF-STUDY. 



And scorned to have her sweet caprices 
Strait-waistcoated in you or me. 

I, who take root and firmly cling, 
Thought fixedness the only thing ; 
Why Nature made the butterflies, 
(Those dreams of wings that float and 

hover 
At noon the slumberous poppies over,) 
Was something hidden from mine eyes, 

Till once, upon a rock's brown bosom, 
Bright as a thorny cactus-blossom, 
I saw a butterfly at rest ; 
Then first of both I felt the beauty ; 
The airy whim, the grim -set duty, 
Each from the other took its best. 

Clearer it grew than winter sky 
That Nature still had reasons why ; 
And, shifting sudden as a breeze, 
My fancy found no satisfaction, 
No antithetic sweet attraction, 
So great as in the Nomades. 

Scythians, with Nature not at strife, 
Light Arabs of our complex life, 
They build no houses, plant no mills 
To utilize Time's sliding river, 
Content that it flow waste forever, 
If they, like it, may have their wills. 

An hour they pitch their shifting tents 
In thoughts, in feelings, and events ; 
Beneath the palm-trees, on the grass, 
They sing, they dance, make love, and 

chatter, 
Vex the grim temples with their clatter, 
And make Truth's fount their looking- 
glass. 

A picnic life ; from love to love, 
From faith to faith they lightly move, 
And yet, hard-eyed philosopher, 
The flightiest maid that ever hovered 
To me your thought-webs fine discov- 
ered, 
No lens to see them through like her. 

So witchingly her finger-tips 
To Wisdom, as away she trips, 
She kisses, waves such sweet farewells 
To Duty, as she laughs " To-morrow! " 
That both from that mad contrast bor- 
row 
A perfectness found nowhere else. 



The beach-bird on its pearly verge 
Follows and flies the whispering surge, 
While, in his tent, the rock-stayed shell , 
Awaits the flood's star- timed vibrations, 
And both, the flutter and the patience, 
The sauntering poet loves them well. 

Fulfil so much of God's decree 
As works its problem out in thee, 
Nor dream that in thy breast alone 
The conscience of the changeful seasons, 
The Will that in the planets reasons 
With space-wide logic, has its throne. 

Thy virtue makes not vice of mine, 
Unlike, but none the less divine ; 
Thy toil adorns, not chides, my play; 
Nature of sameness is so chary, 
With such wild whim the freakish fairy 
Picks presents for the christening-day* 



SELF-STUDY. 

A presence both by night and day, 
That made my life seem just begun, 
Yet scarce a presence, rather say 
The warning aureole of one. 

And yet I felt it everywhere ; 
Walked I the woodland's aisles along, 
It seemed to brush me with its hair ; 
Bathed I, I heard a mermaid's song. 

How sweet it was ! A buttercup 
Could hold for me a day's r 1 »*wi>t 
A bird could lift my fancy i 
To ether free from cloud or blight. 

Who was the nymph ? Nay, I will see, 
Methought, and I will know her near; 
If such, divined, her charm can be, 
Seen and possessed, how triply dear ! 

So every magic art I tried, 
And spells as numberless as sand, 
Until, one evening, by my side 
I saw her glowing fulness stand. 

I turned to clasp her, but "Farewell," 
Parting she sighed, " we meet no more ; 
Not by my hand the curtain fell 
That leaves you conscious, wise, and 
poor. 

" Since you have found me out, I go; 
Another lover I must find, 
Content his happiness to know, 
Nor strive its secret to unwind." 



PICTURES FROM APPLEDORE. 



347 



PICTURES FROM APPLEDORE. 



A heap of bare and splintery crags 
Tumbled about by lightning and frost, 
With rifts and chasms and storm - 

bleached jags, 
That wait and growl for a ship to be 

lost; 
No island, but rather the skeleton 
Of a wrecked and vengeance-smitten 

one, 
Where, aeons ago, with half-shut eye, 
The sluggish saurian crawled to die, 
Gasping under titanic ferns ; 
Ribs of rock that seaward jut, 
Granite shoulders and boulders and 

snags, 
Round which, though the winds in 

heaven be shut, 
The nightmared ocean murmurs and 

yearns, 
Welters, and swashes, and tosses, and 

turns, 
And the dreary black sea- weed lolls and 

wags; 
Only rock from shore to shore, 
Only a moan through the bleak clefts 

blown, 
With sobs in the rifts where the coarse 

kelp shifts, 
Falling and lifting, tossing and drifting, 
And under all a deep, dull roar, 
Dying and swelling, forevermore, — 
Rock and moan and roar alone, 
And the . of some nameless thing 

unknown, 
These make Appledore. 

These make Appledore by night : 
Then there are monsters left and right; 
Every rock is a different monster; 
All you have read of, fancied, dreamed, 
When you waked at night because you 

screamed, 
There they lie for half a mile, 
Jumbled together in a pile, 
And (though you know they never once 

stir), 
If you look long, they seem to be 

moving 
Just as plainly as plain can be, 
Crushing and crowding, wading and 

shoving 
Out into the awful sea, 
Where you can hear them snort and 

spout 



With pauses between, as if they were 

listening, 
Then tumult anon when the surf breaks 

glistening 
In the blackness where they wallow 

about. 

II. 

All this you would scarcely comprehend, 

Should you see the isle on a sunny day ; 

Then it is simple enough in its way, — 

Two rocky bulges, one at each end, 

With a smaller bulge and a hollow be- 
tween ; 

Patches of whortleberry and bay ; 

Accidents of open green, 

Sprinkled with loose slabs square and 
gray, 

Like graveyards for ages deserted; a few 

Unsocial thistles ; an elder or two, 

Foamed over with blossoms white as 
spray ; 

And on the whole island never a tree 

Save a score of sumachs, high as your 
knee, 

That crouch in hollows where they may, 

(The cellars where once stood a village, 
men say,) 

Huddling for warmth, and never grew 

Tall enough for a peep at the sea ; 

A general dazzle of open blue ; 

A breeze always blowing and playing 
rat-tat 

With the bow of the ribbon round your 
hat; 

A score of sheep that do nothing but 
stare 

Up or down at you everywhere ; 

Three or four cattle that chew the cud 

Lying about in a listless despair ; 

A medrick that makes you look over- 
head 

With short, sharp scream, as he sights 
his prey, 

And, dropping straight and swift as 
lead, 

Splits the water with sudden thud; — 

This is Appledore by day. 

A common island, you will say; 
But stay a moment : only climb 
Up to the highest rock of the isle, 
Stand there alone for a little while, 
And with gentle approaches it grows 

sublime, 
Dilating slowly as you win 
A sens i from the silence to take it in. 



348 



PICTURES FROM APPLEDORE. 



So wide the loneness, so lucid the air, 
The granite beneath you so savagely 

bare, 
You well might think you were looking 

down 
From some sky-silenced mountain's 

crown, 
Whose far-down pines are wont to tear 
Locks of wool from the topmost cloud. 
Only be sure you go alone, 
For Grandeur is inaccessibly proud, 
And never yet has backward thrown 
Her veil to feed the stare of a crowd ; 
To more than one was never shown 
That awful front, nor is it fit 
That she, Cothurnus-shod, stand bowed 
Until the self-approving pit 
Enjoy the gust of its own wit 
In babbling plaudits cheaply loud ; 
She hides her mountains and her sea 
From the harriers of scenery, 
Who hunt down sunsets, and huddle 

and bay, 
Mouthing and mumbling the dying day. 

Trust me, 't is something to be cast 
Face to face with one's Self at last, 
To be taken out of the fuss and strife, 
The endless clatter of plate and knife, 
The bore of books and the bores of the 

street, 
From the singular mess we agree to call 

Life, 
Where that is best which the most fools 

vote is, 
And to be set down on one's own two 

feet 
So nigh to the great warm heart of God, 
You almost seem to feel it beat 
Down from the sunshine and up from 

the sod ; 
To be compelled, as it were, to notice 
All the beautiful changes and chances 
Through which the landscape flits and 

glances, 
And to see how the face of common day 
Is written all over with tender histories, 
When you study it that intenser way 
In which a lover looks at his mistress. 

Till now you dreamed not what could 

be done 
With a bit of rock and a ray of sun ; 
But look, how fade the lights and shades 
Of keen bare edge and crevice deep ! 
How doubtfully it fades and fades, 
And glows again, yon craggy steep, 



O'er which, through color's dreamiest 

grades, 
The yellow sunbeams pause and creep ! 
Now pink it blooms, now glimmers gray, 
Now shadows to a filmy blue, 
Tries one, tries all, and will not stay, 
But flits from opal hue to hue, 
And runs through every tenderest range 
Of change that seems not to be change, 
So rare the sweep, so nice the art, 
That lays no stress on an}' part, 
But shifts and lingers and persuades ; 
So soft that sun-brush in the west, 
That asks no costlier pigments' aids, , 
But mingling knobs, flaws, angles, dints, 
Indifferent of worst or best, 
Enchants the cliffs with wraiths and 

hints 
And gracious preludings of tints, 
Where all seems fixed, yet all evades, 
And indefinably pervades 
Perpetual movement with perpetual rest ! 

in. 

Away northeast is Boone Island light ; 
You might mistake it for a ship, 
Only it stands too plumb upright, 
And like the others does not slip 
Behind the sea's unsteady brink ; 
Though, if a cloud-shade chance to dip 
Upon it a moment, 't will suddenly sink, 
Levelled and lost in the darkened main, 
Till the sun builds it suddenly up again, 
As if with a rub of Aladdin's lamp. 
On the mainland you see a misty camp 
Of mountains pitched tumultuously : 
That one looming so long and large 
Is Saddleback, and that point you see 
Over yon low and rounded marge, 
Like the boss of a sleeping giant's targe 
Laid over his breast, is Ossipee ; 
That shadow there may be Kearsarge ; 
That must be Great Haystack; I love 

these names, 
Wherewith the lonely farmer tames 
Nature to mute companionship 
With his own mind's domestic mood, 
And strives the surly world to clip 
In the arms of familiar habitude. 
'T is well he could not contrive to make 
A Saxon of Agamenticus : 
He glowers there to the north of us, 
Wrapt in his blanket of blue haze, 
Unconvertibly savage, and scorns to 

take 
The white man's baptism or his ways. 



PICTURES FROM APPLEDORE. 



349 



Him first on shore the coaster divines 
Through the early gray, and sees him 

shake 
The morning mist from his scalp-lock 

of pines ; 
Him first the skipper makes out in the 

west, 
Ere the earliest sunstreak shoots trem- 
ulous, 
Plashing with orange the palpitant lines 
Of mutable billow, crest after crest, 
And murmurs Agamenticusf 
As if it were the name of a saint. 
But is that a mountain playing cloud, 
Or a cloud playing mountain, just there, 

so faint ? 
Look along over the low right shoulder 
Of Agamenticus into that crowd 
Of brassy thunderheads behind it ; 
Now you have caught it, but, ere you 

are older 
By half an hour, you will lose it and 

find it 
A score of times ; while you look 't is 

gone, 
And, just as you 've given it up, anon 
It is there again, till your weary eyes 
Fancy they see it waver and rise, 
With its brother clouds ; it is Agio- 

chook, 
There if you seek not, and gone if you 

look, 
Ninety miles off as the eagle flies. 

But mountains make not all the shore 
The mainland shows to Appledore ; 
Eight miles the heaving water spreads 
To a long low coast with beaches and 

heads 
That run through unimagined mazes, 
As the lights and shades and magical 

hazes 
Put them away or bring them near, 
Shimmering, sketched out for thirty 

miles 
Between two capes that waver like 

threads, 
And sink in the ocean, and reappear, 
Crumbled and melted to little isles, 
With filmy trees, that seem the mere 
Half-fancies of drowsy atmosphere; 
And see the beach there, where it is 
Flat as a threshing-floor, beaten and 

packed 
With the flashing flails of weariless 

seas, 
How it lifts and looms to a precipice, 



O'er whose square front, a dream, no 

more, 
The steepened sand-stripes seem to pour, 
A murmurless vision of cataract ; 
You almost fancy you hear a roar, 
Fitful and faint from the distance wan- 
dering ; 
But 't is only the blind old ocean maun- 
dering, 
Raking the shingle to and fro, 
Aimlessly clutching and letting go 
The kelp-haired sedges of Appledore, 
Slipping down with a sleepy forgetting, 
And anon his ponderous shoulder setting, 
With a deep, hoarse pant against Apple- 
dore. 



Eastward as* far as the eye can see, 
Still eastward, eastward, endlessly, 
The sparkle and tremor of purple sea 
That rises before you, a flickering hill, 
On and on to the shut of the sky, 
And beyond, you fancy it sloping until 
The same multitudinous throb and thrill 
That vibrate under your dizzy eye 
In ripples of orange and pink are sent 
Where the poppied sails doze on the 

yard, 
And the clumsy junk and proa lie 
Sunk deep with precious woods and 

nard, 
Mid the palmy isles of the Orient. 
Those leaning towers of clouded white 
On the farthest brink of doubtful ocean, 
That shorten and shorten out of sight, 
Yet seem on the selfsame spot to stay, 
Receding with a motionless motion, 
Fading to dubious films of gray, 
Lost, dimly found, then vanished 

wholly, 
Will rise again, the great world under, 
First films, then towers, then high- 
heaped clouds, 
Whose n earing outlines sharpen slowly 
Into tall ships with cobweb shrouds, 
That fill long Mongol eyes with wonder, 
Crushing the violet wave to spray 
Past some low headland of Cathay; — 
What was that sigh which seemed so 

near, 
Chilling your fancy to the core ? 
'T is only the sad old sea you hear, 
That seems to seek forevermore 
Something it cannot find, and so, 
Sighing, seeks on, and tells its woe 
To the pitiless breakers of Appledore. 



350 



PICTURES FROM APPLEDORE. 



v. 

How looks Appledore in a storm ? 
I have seen it when its crags seemed 

frantic, 
Butting against the mad Atlantic, 
When surge on surge would heap enorme, 
Cliffs of emerald topped with snow, 
That lifted and lifted, and then let go 
A great white awdanche of thunder, 

A grinding, blinding, deafening ire 
Monadnock might have trembled under ; 
And the island, whose rock-roots pierce 

below 
To where they are warmed with the 
central fire, 
You could feel its granite fibres racked, 
As it seemed to plunge with a shudder 

and thrill 
Right at the breast of the swooping 
hill, 
And to rise again snorting a cataract 
Of rage-froth from every cranny and 
ledge, 
"While the sea drew its breath in hoarse 
and deep, 
And the next vast breaker curled its 
edge, 
Gathering itself for a mightier leap. 

North, east, and south there are reefs 
and breakers 
You would never dream of in smooth 
weather, 
That toss and gore the sea for acres, 
Bellowing and gnashing and snarling 
together ; 
Look northward, where Duck Island lies, 
And over its crown you will see arise, 
Against a background of slaty skies, 
A row of pillars still and white, 
That glimmer, and then are out of 
sight, 
As if the moon should suddenly kiss, 
While you crossed the gusty desert by 
night, 
The long colonnades of Persepolis ; 
Look southward for White Island light, 
The lantern stands ninety feet o'er the 
tide ; 
There is first a half-mile of tumult and 

fight, 
Of dash and roar and tumble and fright, 
And surging bewilderment wild and 
wide, 
Where the breakers struggle left and 
right, 



Then a mile or more of rushing sea, 
And then the lighthouse slim and lone ; 
And whenever the weight of ocean is 

thrown 
Full and fair on White Island head, 

A great mist-jotun you will see 

Lifting himself up silently 
High and huge o'er the lighthouse top, 
With hands of wavering spray outspread, 

Groping after the little tower, 

That seems to shrink and shorten and 
cower, 
Till the monster's arms of a sudden drop, 

And silently and fruitlessly 

He sinks again into the sea. 

You, meanwhile, where drenched you 
stand, 
Awaken once more to the rush and 
roar, 
And on the rock-point tighten your 

hand, 
As you turn and see a valley deep, 

That was not there a moment before, 
Suck rattling down between you and a 
heap 
Of toppling billow, whose instant fall 
Must sink the whole island once for 
all, 
Or watch the silenter, stealthier seas 
Feeling their way to you more and 
more ; 
If they once should clutch you high as 

the knees, 
They would whirl you down like a sprig 

of kelp, 
Beyond all reach of hope or help ; — 
And such in a storm is Appledore. 

VI. 

'T is the sight of a lifetime to behold 
The great shorn sun as you see it now, 
Across eight miles of undulant gold 
That widens landward, weltered and 

rolled, 
With freaks of shadow and crimson 

stains ; 
To see the solid mountain brow 
As it notches the disk, and gains and 

gains 
Until there comes, you scarce know when, 
A tremble of fire o'er the parted lips 
Of cloud and mountain, which vanishes ; 

then 
From the body of day the sun-soul 

slips 



THE WIND-HARP. 



351 



And the face of earth darkens ; but now 

the strips 
Of western vapor, straight and thin, 
From which the horizon's swervings win 
A grace of contrast, take fire and burn 
Like splinters of touchwood, whose 

edges a mould - 
Of ashes o'erfeathers ; northward turn 
For an instant, and let your eye grow 

cold 
On Agamenticus, and when once more 
You look, 't is as if the land-breeze, 

growing, 
From the smouldering brands the film 

were blowing, 
And brightening them down to the very 

core ; 
Yet they momently cool and dampen 

and deaden, 
The crimson turns golden, the gold turns 

leaden, 
Hardening into one black bar 
O'er which, from the hollow heaven afar, 
Shoots a splinter of light like diamond, 
Half seen, half fancied; by and by 
Beyond whatever is most beyond 
In the uttermost waste of desert sky, 
Grows a star ; 

And over it, visible spirit of dew, — 
Ah, stir not, speak not, hold your 

breath, 
Or surely the miracle vanisheth, — 
The new moon, tranced in unspeakable 

blue ! 
No frail illusion ; this were true, 
Rather, to call it the canoe 
Hollowed out of a single pearl, 
That floats us from the Present's whirl 
Back to those beings which were ours, 
When wishes were winged things like 

powers ! 
Call it not light, that mystery tender, 
Which broods upon the brooding ocean, 
That flush of ecstasied surrender 
To indefinable emotion, 
That glory, mellower than a mist 
Of pearl dissolved with amethyst, 
Which rims Square Rock, like what 

they paint 
Of mitigated heavenly splendor 
Round the stern forehead of a Saint ! 

No more a vision, reddened, largened, 
The moon dips toward her mountain nest, 
And, fringing it with palest argent, 
Slow sheathes herself behind the mar- 
gent 



Of that long cloud-bar in the West, 
Whose nether edge, erelong, you see 
The silvery chrism in turn anoint, 
And then the tiniest rosy point 
Touched doubtfully and timidly 
Into the dark blue's chilly strip, 
As some mute, wondering thing below, 
Awakened by the thrilling glow T , 
Might, looking up, see Dian dip 
One lucent foot's delaying tip 
In Latmian fountains Ions; ago. 



Knew you what silence was before? 
Here is no startle of dreaming bird 
That sings in his sleep, or strives to 

sing; 
Here is no sough of branches stirred, 
Nor noise of any living thing, 
Such as one hears by night on shore ; 
Only, now and then, a sigh, 
With fickle intervals between, 
Sometimes far, and sometimes nigh, 
Such as Andromeda might have heard, 
And fancied the huge sea-beast unseen 
Turning in sleep; it is the sea 
That welters and wavers uneasily 
Round the lonely reefs of Appledore. 



THE WTNTD-HARP. 

I treasure in secret some long, fine 

hair 
Of tenderest brown, but so inwardly 

golden 
I half used to fancy the sunshine there, 
So shy, so shifting, so waywardly rare, 
Was only caught for the moment and 

holden 
While I could say Dearest ! and kiss it, 

and then 
In pity let go to the summer again. 

I twisted this magic in gossamer strings 

Over a wind-harp's Delphian hollow ; 

Then called to the idle breeze that 

swings 
All day in the pine-tops, and clings, and 

sings 
Mid the musical leaves, and said, "0, 

follow 
The will of those tears that deepen my 

words, 
And fly to my window to waken these 

chords." 



352 



AUF WIEDERSEHEN. — PALINODE. 



So they trembled to life, and, doubt- 
fully 
Feeling their way to my sense, sang, 
* ' Say whether 

They sit all day by the greenwood tree, 

The lover and loved, as it wont to 
be, 
When we — " But grief conquered, 
and all together 

They swelled such weird murmur as 
haunts a shore 

Of some planet dispeopled, — " Never- 
more ! " 

Then from deep in the past, as seemed 

to me, 
The strings gathered sorrow and sang 

forsaken, 
" One lover still waits 'neath the green- 
wood tree, 
But 'tis dark," and they shuddered, 

* ' where lieth she 
Dark and cold ! Forever must one 

be taken ? " 
But I groaned, " harp of all ruth 

bereft, 
This Scripture is sadder, — * the other 

left ' ! " 

There murmured, as if one strove to 
speak, 
And tears came instead ; then the sad 
tones wandered 

And faltered among the uncertain chords 

Jn a troubled doubt between sorrow and 
words ; 
At last with themselves they ques- 
tioned and pondered, 

" Hereafter ? — who knoweth ? " and so 
they sighed 

Down the long steps that lead to silence 
and died. 



AUF WIEDERSEHEN! 



The little gate was reached at last, 
Half hid in lilacs down the lane ; 
She pushed it wide, and, as she past, 
A wistful look she backward cast, 
And said, — ' ' Auf wiedersehen ! " 

With hand on latch, a vision white 

Lingered reluctant, and again 
Half doubting if she did aright, 



Soft as the dews that fell that night, 
She said, — "Auf wiedersehen 1 " 

The lamp's clear gleam flits up the stair ; 

I linger in delicious pain ; 
Ah, in that chamber, whose rich air 
To breathe in thought I scarcely dare, 

Thinks she, — "Auf wiedersehen ! " 

'T is thirteen years ; once more I press 

The turf that silences the lane ; 
I hear the rustle of her dress, 
I smell the lilacs, and — ah, yes, 
I hear " Auf wiedersehen ! " 

Sweet piece of bashful maiden art ! 

The English words had seemed too 
fain, 
But these — they drew us heart to heart, 
Yet held us tenderly apart ; 

She said, ' ' Auf wiedersehen I " 



PALINODE. 

AUTUMN. 

Still thirteen years : 't is autumn now 
On field and hill, in heart and brain ; 

The naked trees at evening sough ; 

The leaf to the forsaken bough 
Sighs not, — " We meet again ! " 

Two watched yon oriole's pendent dome, 
That now is void, and dank with rain, 

And one, — O, hope more frail than 
foam ! 

The bird to his deserted home 
Sings not, — " We meet again ! " 

The loath gate swings with rusty creak ; 

Once, parting there, we played at 
pain ; 
There came a parting, when the weak 
And fading lips essayed to speak 

Vainly, — u We meet again ! " 

Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith, 

Though thou in outer dark remain ; 
One sweet sad voice ennobles death, 
And still, for eighteen centuries saith 
Softly, — "Ye meet again ! " 

If earth another grave must bear, 

Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strain, 
And something whispers my despair, 
That, from an orient chamber there, 
Floats down, * ' We meet again ! " 



AFTER THE BURIAL. — THE DEAD HOUSE. 



353 



AFTER THE BURIAL. 

Yes, faith is a goodly anchor ; 
When skies are sweet as a psalm, 
At the bows it lolls so stalwart, 
In bluff, broad-shouldered calm. 

And when over breakers to leeward 
The tattered surges are hurled, 
It may keep our head to the tempest, 
With its grip on the base of the world. 

But, after the shipwreck, tell me 
What help in its iron thews, 
Still true to the broken hawser, 
Deep down among sea-weed and ooze ? 

In the breaking gulfs of sorrow, 
When the helpless feet stretch out 
And find in the deeps of darkness 
No footing so solid as doubt, 

Then better one spar of Memory, 
One broken plank of the Past, 
That our human heart may cling to, 
Though hopeless of shore at last ! 

To the spirit its splendid conjectures, 
To the flesh its sweet despair, 
Its tears o'er the thin-worn locket 
With its anguish of deathless hair ! 

Immortal ? I feel it and know it, 
Who doubts it of such as she ? 
But that is the pang's very secret, — 
Immortal away from me. 

There's a narrow ridge in the grave- 
yard 
Would scarce stay a child in his race, 
But to me and my thought it is wider 
Than the star-sown vague of Space. 

Your logic, my friend, is perfect, 
Your morals most drearily true ; 
But, since the earth clashed on Tier 

coffin, 
I keep hearing that, and not you. 

Console if you will, I can bear it ; 
'T is a well-meant alms of breath ; 
But not all the preaching since Adam 
Has made Death other than Death. 

It is pagan ; but wait till you feel it, — 
That jar of our earth, that dull shock 
When the ploughshare of deeper pas- 
sion 
Tears down to our primitive rock. 



Communion in spirit ! Forgive me, 
But I, who am earthy and weak, 
Would give all my incomes from dream- 
land 
For a touch of her hand on my cheek. 

That little shoe in the corner, 
So worn and wrinkled and brown, 
With its emptiness confutes you, 
And argues your wisdom down. 



THE DEAD HOUSE. 

Here once my step was quickened, 
Here beckoned the opening door, 

And welcome thrilled from the thresh- 
old 
To the foot it had known before. 

A glow came forth to meet me 

From the flame that laughed in the 
grate, 

And shadows adance on the ceiling, 
Danced blither with mine for a mate. 

"I claim you, old friend," yawned the 
arm-chair, 
"This corner, you know, is your 
seat " ; 
" Rest your slippers on me," beamed the 
fender, 
" I brighten at touch of your feet." 

"We know the practised finger," 
Said the books, "that seems like 
brain" ; 

And the shy page rustled the secret 
It had kept till I came again. 

Sang the pillow, "My down once quiv- 
ered 

On nightingales' throats that flew 
Through moonlit gardens of Hafiz 

To gather quaint dreams for you." 

Ah me, where the Past sowed heart's- 
ease, 

The Present plucks rue for us men ! 
I come back : that scar unhealing 

Was not in the churchyard then. 

But, I think, the house is unaltered, 

I will go and beg to look 
At the rooms that were once familiar 

To my life as its bed to a brook. 



354 



A MOOD. 



THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND. 



Unaltered \ Alas for the sameness 
That makes the change but more ! 

'T is a dead man I see in the mirrors, 
'T is his tread that chills the floor ! 

To learn such a simple lesson, 
Need I go to Paris and Kome, 

That the many make the household, 
But only one the home ? 

'T was just a womanly presence, 

An influence unexprest, 
But a rose 'she had worn, on my grave- 
sod 

Were more than long life with the rest ! 

'T was a smile, 't was a garment's rustle, 
'T was nothing that 1 can phrase, 

But the whole dumb dwelling grew 
conscious, 
And put on her looks and ways. 

"Were it mine I would close the shutters, 
Like lids when the life is fled, 

And the funeral fire should wind it, 
This corpse of a home that is dead. 

For it died that autumn morning 
When she, its soul, was borne 

To lie all dark on the hillside 

That looks over woodland and corn. 



A MOOD. 

I GO to the ridge in the forest 

I haunted in days gone by, 

But thou, Memory, pourest 

No magical drop in mine eye, 

Nor the gleam of the secret restorest 

That hath faded from earth and sky : 

A Presence autumnal and sober 

Invests every rock and tree, 

And the aureole of October 

Lights the maples, but darkens me. 

Pine in the distance, 

Patient through sun or rain, 

Meeting with graceful persistence, 

With yielding but rooted resistance, 

The northwind's wrench and strain, 

No memory of past existence 

Brings thee pain ; 

Eight for the zenith heading, 

Friendly with heat or cold, 

Thine arms to the influence spreading 

Of the heavens, just from of old, 



Thou only aspirest the more, 
Unregretful the old leaves shedding 
That fringed thee with music before, 
And deeper thy roots embedding 
In the grace and the beauty of yore ; 
Thou sigh'st not, "Alas, I am older, 
The green of last summer is sear ! " 
But loftier, hopefuller, bolder, 
Winnest broader horizons each year. 

To me 't is not cheer thou art singing : 

There 's a sound of the sea, 

mournful tree, 

In thy boughs forever clinging, 

And the far-off roar 

Of waves on the shore 

A shattered vessel flinging. 

As thou musest still of the ocean 

On which thou must float at last, 

And seem'st to foreknow 

The shipwreck's woe 

And the sailor wrenched from the broken 

mast, 
Do I, in this vague emotion, 
This sadness that will not pass, 
Though the air throbs with wings, 
And the field laughs and sings, 
Do I forebode, alas ! 
The ship-building longer and wearier, 
The voyage's struggle and strife, 
And then the darker and drearier 
Wreck of a broken life ? 



THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND. 



BIORN S BECKONERS. 

Now Bibrn, the sun of Heriulf, had ill 

da} r s 
Because the heart within him seethed 

with blood 
That would not be allayed with any toil, 
Whether of war or hunting or the oar, 
But was anhungered for some joy un- 
tried : 
For the brain grew not weary with the 

limbs, 
But, while they slept, still hammered 

like a Troll, 
Building all night a bridge of solid 

dream 
Between him and some purpose of his 

soul, 



THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND. 



355 



Or will to find a purpose. With the 

dawn 
The sleep-laid timbers, crumbled to soft 

mist, 
Denied all foothold. But the dream 

remained, 
And every night with yellow-bearded 

kings 
His sleep was haunted, — mighty men 

of old, 
Once young as he, now ancient like the 

gods, 
And safe as stars in all men's memo- 
ries. 
Strange sagas read he in their sea-blue 

eyes 
Cold as the sea, grandly compassionless ; 
Like life, they made him eager and then 

mocked. 
Nay, broad awake, they would not let 

him be ; 
They shaped themselves gigantic in the 

mist, 
They rose far-beckoning in the lamps of 

heaven, 
They whispered invitation in the winds, 
And breath came from them, mightier 

than the wind, 
To strain the lagging sails of his resolve, 
Till that grew passion which before was 

wish, 
And youth seemed all too costly to be 

staked 
On the soiled cards wherewith men 

played their game, 
Letting Time pocket up the larger life. 
Lost with base gain of raiment, food, 

and roof. 
"What helpeth lightness of the feet?" 

they said, 
"Oblivion runs with swifter foot than 

they; 
Or strength of sinew ? New men come 

as strong, 
And those sleep nameless ; or renown in 

war? 
Swords grave no name on the long- 

memoried rock 
But moss shall hide it; they alone who 

wring 
Some secret purpose from the unwilling 

gods 
Survive in song for yet a little while 
To vex, like us, the dreams of later 

men, 
Ourselves a dream, and dreamlike all we 

did." 



II. 

thorwald's lay. 

So Biorn went comfortless but for his 

thought, 
And by his thought the more discom- 
forted, 
Till Eric Thurlson kept his Yule-tide 

feast : 
And thither came he, called among the 

rest, 
Silent, lone-minded, ■ a church-door to 

mirth : 
But, ere deep draughts forbade such 

serious song 
As the grave Skald might chant nor 

after blush, 
Then Eric looked at Thorwald where he 

sat 
Mute as a cloud amid the stormy hall, 
And said : "0 Skald, sing now an olden 

song, 
Such as our fathers heard who led great 

lives ; 
And, as the bravest on a shield is borne 
Along the waving host that shouts him 

king, 
So rode their thrones upon the throng- 
ing seas ! " 
Then the old man arose ; white-haired 

he stood, 
White -bearded, and with eyes that 

looked afar 
From their still region of perpetual snow, 
Beyond the little smokes and stirs of 

men : 
His head was bowed with gathered 

flakes of years, 
As winter bends the sea-foreboding pine, 
But something triumphed in his brow 

and eye, 
Which whoso saw it could not see and 

crouch : 
Loud rang the emptied beakers as he 

mused, 
Brooding his eyried thoughts ; then, as 

an eagle 
Circles smooth-winged above the wind- 
vexed woods, 
So wheeled his soul into the air of song 
High o'er the stormy hall ; and thus he 

sang: 
" The fl etcher for his arrow-shaft picks 

out 
Wood closest -grained, long -seasoned, 

straight as light ; 
And from a quiver full of such as these 



356 



THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND. 



The wary bowman, matched against his 

peers, 
Long doubting, singles yet once more 

the best. 
"Who is it needs such flawless shafts as 

Fate? 
What archer of his arrows is so choice, 
Or hits the white so surely ? They are 

men, 
The chosen of her quiver; nor for her 
"Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained 

stick 
At random from life's vulgar fagot 

plucked : 
Such answer household ends; but she 

will have 
Souls straight and clear, of toughest 

fibre, sound 
Down to the heart of heart ; from these 

she strips 
All needless stuff, all sapwood ; seasons 

them ; 
From circumstance untoward feathers 

plucks 
Crumpled and cheap ; and barbs with 

iron will : 
The hour that passes is her quiver-boy : 
"When she draws bow, 't is not across 

the wind, 
Nor 'gainst the sun her haste-snatched 

arrow sings, 
For sun and wind have plighted faith 

to her : 
Ere men have heard the sinew twang, 

behold 
In the butt's heart her trembling mes- 
senger ! 

"The song is old and simple that I 

sing ; 
But old and simple are despised as 

cheap, 
Though hardest to achieve of human 

things : 
Good were the days of yore, when men 

were tried 
By ring of shields, as now by ring of 

words ; 
But while the gods are left, and hearts 

of men, 
And wide-doored ocean, still the days 

are good. 
Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity, 
Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for 

her. 
Be not abroad, nor deaf with household 

cares 



That chatter loudest as they mean the 

least ; 
Swift-willed is thrice-willed ; late means 

nevermore ; 
Impatient is her foot, nor turns again." 
He ceased; upon his bosom sank his 

beard 
Sadly, as one who oft had seen her pass 
Nor stayed her : and forthwith the 

frothy tide 
Of interrupted wassail roared along ; 
But Biorn, the son of Heriulf, sat apart 
Musing, and, with his eyes upon the fire, 
Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen. 
"A ship," he muttered, "is a winged 

bridge 
That leadeth every way to man's desire, 
And ocean the wide gate to manful 

luck" ; 
And then with that resolve his heart 

was bent, 
Which, like a humming shaft, through 

many a stripe 
Of day and night, across the unpath- 

wayed seas 
Shot the brave prow that cut on Yin- 
land sands 
The first rune in the Saga of the West. 

III. 
gtjdrida's prophecy. 

Four weeks they sailed, a speck in sky. 

shut seas, 
Life, where was never life that knew 

itself, 
But tumbled lubber-like in blowing 

whales ; 
Thought, where the like had never been 

before 
Since Thought primeval brooded the 

abyss ; 
Alone as men were never in the world. 
They saw the icy foundlings of the sea, 
White cliffs of silence, beautiful by day, 
Or looming, sudden-perilous, at night 
In monstrous hush ; or sometimes in the 

dark 
The waves broke ominous with paly 

gleams 
Crushed by the prow in sparkles of cold 

fire. 
Then came green stripes of sea that 

promised land 
But brought it not, and on the thirtieth 

day 



THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND. 



357 



Low in the West were wooded shores 
like cloud. 

They shouted as men shout with sud- 
den hope ; 

But Biorn was silent, such strange loss 
there is 

Between the dream's fulfilment and the 
dream, 

Such sad abatement in the goal attained. 

Then Gudrida, that was a prophetess, 

Rapt with strange influence from At- 
lantis, sang : *"■ 

Her words : the vision was the dream- 
ing shore's. 

Looms there the New Land : 
Locked in the shadow 
Long the gods shut it, 
Niggards of newness 
They, the o'er-old. 

Little it looks there, 
Slim as a cloud-streak ; 
It shall fold peoples 
Even as a shepherd 
Foldeth his flock. 

Silent it sleeps now ; 
Great ships shall seek it, 
Swarming as salmon ; 
Noise of its numbers 
Two seas shall hear. 

Man from the Northland, 
Man from the Southland, 
Haste emptj^-handed ; 
No more than manhood 
Bring they, and hands. 

Dark hair and fair hair, 
Red blood and blue blood, 
There shall be mingled ; 
Force of the ferment 
Makes the New Man. 

Pick of all kindreds, 
King's blood shall theirs be, 
Shoots of the eldest 
Stock upon Midgard, 
Sons of the poor. 

Them waits the New Land ; 
They shall subdue it, 
Leaving their sons' sons 
Space for the body, 
Space for the soul. 



Leaving their sons' sons 
All things save song-craft, 
Plant long in growing, 
Thrusting its tap-root 
Deep in the Gone. 

Here men shall grow up 
Strong from self-helping ; 
Eyes for the present 
Bring they as eagles', 
Blind to the Past. 

They shall make over 
Creed, law, and custom ; 
Driving-men, doughty 
Builders of empire, 
Builders of men. 

Here is no singer ; 
What should they sing pf ? 
They, the unresting? 
Labor is ugly, 
Loathsome is change. 

These the old gods hate, 
Dwellers in dream-land, 
Drinking delusion 
Out of the empty 
Skull of the Past. 

These hate the old gods, 
Warring against them ; 
Fatal to Odin, 
Here the wolf Fenrir 
Lieth in wait. 

Here the gods' Twilight 
Gathers, earth -gulfing; 
Blackness of battle, 
Fierce till the Old World 
Flares up in fire. 

Doubt not, my Northmen ; 
Fate loves the fearless ; 
Fools, when their roof-tree 
Falls, think it doomsday ; 
Firm stands the sky. 

Over the ruin 
See I the promise ; 
Crisp waves the cornfield, 
Peace-walled, the homestead 
Waits open-doored. 

There lies the New Land; 
Yours to behold it, 
Not to possess it ; 
Slowly Fate's perfect 
Fulness shall come. 



358 



MAHMOOD THE IMAGE-BREAKER. 



Then from your strong loins 
Seed shall be scattered, 
Men to the marrow, 
Wilderness tamers, 
Walkers of waves. 

Jealous, the old gods 
Shut it in shadow, 
Wisely they ward it, 
Egg of the serpent, 
Bane to them all. 

Stronger and sweeter 
New gods shall seek it 
Fill it with man-folk 
Wise for the future, 
Wise from the past. 

Here all is all men's, 
Save only Wisdom ; 
King he that wins her ; 
Him hail they helmsman, 
Highest of heart. 

Might makes no master 
Here any longer ; 
Sword is not swayer ; 
Here e'en the gods are 
Selfish no more. 

Walking the New Earth, 
Lo, a divine One 
Greets all men godlike, 
Calls them his kindred, 
He, the Divine. 

Is it Thor's hammer 
Rays in his right hand? 
Weaponless walks he ; 
It is the White Christ, 
Stronger than Thor. 

Here shall a realm rise 
Mighty in manhood ; 
Justice and Mercy- 
Here set a stronghold 
Safe without spear. 

Weak was the Old World, 
Wearily war-fenced ; 
Out of its ashes, 
Strong as the morning, 
Springeth the New. 

Beauty of promise, 
Promise of beauty, 



Safe in the silence 
Sleep thou, till cometh 
Light to thy lids ! 

Thee shall awaken 
Flame from the furnace, 
Bath of all brave ones, 
Cleanser of conscience, 
Welder of will. 

Lowly shall love thee, 
Thee, open-handed ! 
Stalwart shall shield thee, 
Thee, worth their best blood, 
Waif of the West ! 

Then shall come singers, 
Singing no swan -song, 
Birth-carols, rather, 
Meet for the man child 
Mighty of bone. 



MAHMOOD THE IMAGE-BREAKER. 

Old events have modern meanings; 

only that survives 
Of past history which finds kindred in 

all hearts and lives. 

Mahmood once, the idol-breaker, spread- 
er of the Faith, 

Was at Sumnat tempted sorely, as the 
legend saith. 

In the great pagoda's centre, monstrous 

and abhorred, 
Granite on a throne of granite, sat the 

temple's lord. 

Mahmood paused a moment, silenced by 

the silent face 
That, with eyes of stone unwavering, 

awed the ancient place. 

Then the Brahmins knelt before him, 

by his doubt made bold, 
Pledging for their idol's ransom countless 

gems and gold. 

Gold was yellow dirt to Mahmood, but 

of precious use, 
Since from it the roots of power suck a 

potent juice. 



INVITA MINERVA. — THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 



359 



1 ' Were yon stone alone in question, this 

would please me well," 
Mahmood said ; "but, with the block 

there, I my truth must sell. 

"Wealth and rule slip down with For- 
tune, as her wheel turns round ; 

He who keeps his faith, he only cannot 
be discrowned. 

"Little were a change of station, loss 

of life or crown, 
But the wreck were past retrieving if the 

Man fell down." 

So his iron mace he lifted, smote with 

might and main, 
And the idol, on the pavement tumbling, 

burst in twain. 

Luck obeys the downright striker ; from 

the hollow core, 
Fifty times the Brahmins' offer deluged 

all the floor. 



INVITA MINERVA. 

The Bardling came where by a river 
grew 

The pennoned reeds, that, as the west- 
wind blew, 

Gleamed and sighed plaintively, as if 
they knew 

What music slept enchanted in each 
stem, 

Till Pan should choose some happy one 
of them, 

And with wise lips enlife it through and 
through. 

The Bardling, thought, " A pipe is all I 

need ; 
Once I have sought me out a clear, 

smooth reed, 
And shaped it to my fancy, I proceed 
To breathe such strains as, yonder mid 

the rocks, 
The strange youth blows, that tends 

Admetus' flocks, 
And all the maidens shall to me pay 

heed." 

The summer day he spent in questful 

round, 
And many a reed he marred, but never 

found 



A conjuring-spell to free the imprisoned 

sound ; 
At last his vainly wearied limbs he laid 
Beneath a sacred laurel's flickering shade, 
And sleep about his brain her cobweb 

wound. 

Then strode the mighty Mother through 

his dreams, 
Saying: "The reeds along a thousand 

streams 
Are mine, and who is he that plots and 

schemes 
To snare the melodies wherewith my 

breath 
Sounds through the double pipes of Life 

and Death, 
Atoning what to men mad discord 

seems ? 

"He seeks not me, but I seek oft in 

vain 
For him who shall my voiceful reeds 

constrain, 
And make them utter their melodious 

pain ; 
He flies the immortal gift, for well he 

knows 
His life of life must with its overflows 
Flood the unthankful pipe, nor come 

again. 

"Thou fool, who dost my harmless 

subjects wrong, 
'Tis not the singer's wish that makes 

the song : 
The rhythmic beauty wanders dumb, 

how long, 
Nor stoops to any daintiest instrument, 
Till, found its mated lips, their sweet 

consent 
Makes mortal breath than Time and 

Fate more strong." 



THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 

I. 

'T is a woodland enchanted ! 
By no sadder spirit 
Than blackbirds and thrushes, 
That whistle to cheer it 
All day in the bushes, 
This woodland is haunted : 
And in a small clearing, 



360 



THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 



Beyond sight or hearing 

Of human annoyance, 

The little fount gushes, 

First smoothly, then dashes 

And gurgles and flashes, 

To the maples and ashes 

Confiding its joyance ; 

Unconscious confiding, 

Then, silent and glossy, 

Slips winding and hiding 

Through alder-stems mossy, 

Through gossamer roots 

Fine as nerves, 

That tremble, as shoots 

Through their magnetized curves 

The allurement delicious 

Of the water's capricious 

Thrills, gushes, and swerves. 

II. 

Tis a woodland enchanted ! 

I am writing no fiction ; 

And this fount, its sole daughter, 

To the woodland was granted 

To pour holy water 

And win benediction ; 

In summer-noon flushes, 

When all the wood hushes, 

Blue dragon-flies knitting 

To and fro in the sun, 

"With sidelong jerk flitting 

Sink down on the rushes, 

And, motionless sitting, 

Hear it bubble and run, 

Hear its low inward singing, 

With level wings swinging 

On green tasselled rushes, 

To dream in the sun. 



'T is a woodland enchanted ! 
The great August noonlight, 
Through myriad rifts slanted, 
Leaf and bole thickly sprinkles 
With flickering gold ; 
There, in warm August gloaming, 
With quick, silent brightenings, 
From meadow-lands roaming, 
The firefly twinkles 
His fitful heat-lightnings ; 
There the magical moonlight 
With meek, saintly glory 
Steeps summit and wold ; 
There whippoorwills plain in the soli- 
tudes hoary 



With lone cries that wander 

Now hither, now yonder, 

Like souls doomed of old 

To a mild purgatory ; 

But through noonlight and moonlight 

The little fount tinkles 

Its silver saints' -bells, 

That no sprite ill-boding 

May make his abode in 

Those innocent dells. 

IV. 

'T is a woodland enchanted ! 
When the phebe scarce whistles 
Once an hour to his fellow, 
And, where red lilies flaunted, 
Balloons from the thistles 
Tell summer's disasters, 
The butterflies yellow, 
As caught in an eddy 
Of air's silent ocean, 
Sink, waver, and steady 
O'er goats' -beard and asters, 
Like souls of dead flowers, 
With aimless emotion 
Still lingering unready 
To leave their old bowers ; 
And the fount is no dumber, 
But still gleams and flashes, 
And gurgles and plashes, 
To the measure of summer ; 
The butterflies hear it, 
And spell-bound are holden, 
Still balancing near it 
O'er the goats' -beard so golden. 

v. 

'T is a woodland enchanted ! 

A vast silver willow, 

I know not how planted, 

(This wood is enchanted, 

And full of surprises,) 

Stands stemming a billow, 

A motionless billow 

Of ankle-deep mosses ; 

Two great roots it crosses 

To make a round basin, 

And there the Fount rises ; 

Ah, too pure a mirror 

For one sick of error 

To see his sad face in ! 

No dew-drop is stiller 

In its lupin-leaf setting 

Than this water moss-bounded; 

But a tiny sand-pillar 



THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 



361 



From the bottom keeps jetting, 
And mermaid ne'er sounded 
Through the wreaths of a shell, 
Down amid crimson dulses 
In some dell of the ocean, 
A melody sweeter 
Than the delicate pulses, 
The soft, noiseless metre, 
The pause and the swell 
Of that musical motion : 
I recall it, not see it ; 
Could vision be clearer? 
Half I 'm fain to draw nearer 
Half tempted to flee it ; 
The sleeping Past wake not, 
Beware ! 

One forward step take not, 
Ah ! break not 
That quietude rare ! 
By my step unaffrighted 
A thrush hops before it, 
And o'er it 

A birch hangs delighted, 
Dipping, dipping, dipping its tremu- 
lous hair ; 
Pure as the fountain, once 
I came to the place, 
(How dare I draw nearer?) 
I bent o'er its mirror, 
And saw a child's face 
Mid locks of bright gold in it ; 
Yes, pure as this fountain once, - — 
Since, how much error ! 
Too holy a mirror 
For the man to behold in it 
His harsh, bearded countenance ! 

VI. 

T is a woodland enchanted ! 

Ah, fly unreturning ! 

Yet stay ; — 

'T is a woodland enchanted, 

Where wonderful chances 

Have sway ; 

Luck flees from the cold one 

But leaps to the bold one 

Half-way ; 

Why should I be daunted ? 

Still the smooth mirror glances, 

Still the amber sand dances, 

One look, — then away ! 

magical glass S 

Canst keep in thy bosom 

Shades of leaf and of blossom 

When summer days pass, 

So that when thy wave hardens 



It shapes as it pleases, 

Unharmed by the breezes, 

Its fine hanging gardens ? 

Hast those in thy keeping, 

And canst not uncover, 

Enchantedly sleeping, 

The old shade of thy lover ? 

It is there ! I have -found it ! 

He wakes, the long sleeper ! 

The pool is grown deeper, 

The sand dance is ending, 

The white floor sinks, blending 

W^ith skies that below me 

Are deepening and bending, 

And a child's face alone 

That seems not to know me, 

With hair that fades golden 

In the heaven-glow round it, 

Looks up at my own ; 

Ah, glimpse through the portarl 

That leads to the throne, 

That opes the child's olden 

Regions Elysian ! 

Ah, too holy vision 

For thy skirts to be h olden 

By soiled hand of mortal ! 

It wavers, it scatters, 

'T is gone past recalling ! 

A tear's sudden falling 

The magic cup shatters, 

Breaks the spell of the waters, 

And the sand cone once more, 

With a ceaseless renewing, 

Its dance is pursuing 

On the silvery floor, 

O'er and o'er, 

With a noiseless and ceaseless renewing. 



'T is a woodland enchanted ! 

If you ask me, Where is it ? 

I only can answer, 

'T is past my disclosing ; 

Not to choice is it granted 

By sure paths to visit 

The still pool enclosing 

Its blithe little dancer; 

But in some day, the rarest 

Of many Septembers, 

When the pulses of air rest, 

And all things lie dreaming 

In drowsy haze steaming 

From the wood's glowing embers. 

Then, sometimes, unheeding, 

And asking not whither, 

By a sweet inward leading 



362 



YUSSOUF. 



THE DARKENED MIND. 



My feet are drawn thither, 

And, looking with awe in the magical 

mirror, 
I see through my tears, 
Half doubtful of seeing, 
The face un perverted, 
The warm golden being 
Of a child of five years ; 
And spite of the mists and the error, 
And the days overcast, 
Can feel that I walk undeserted, 
But forever attended 
By the glad heavens that bended 
O'er the innocent past ; 
Toward fancy or truth 
Doth the sweet vision win me ? 
Dare I think that I cast 
In the fountain of youth 
The fleeting reflection 
Of some bygone perfection 
That still lingers in me ? 

YUSSOUF. 

A stranger came one night to Yus- 

souf's tent, 
Saying, " Behold one outcast and in 

dread, 
Against whose life the bow of power is 

bent, 
Who flies, and hath not where to lay 

his head ; 
I come to thee for shelter and for food, 
To Yussouf, called through all our tribes 

"The Good." 

* ' This tent is mine, ' ' said Yussouf, ' ' but 

no more 
Than it is God's ; come in, and be at 

peace ; 
Freely shalt thou partake of all my 

store 
As I of His who buildeth over these 
Our tents his glorious roof of night and 

day, 
And at whose door none ever yet heard 

Nay." 

So Yussouf entertained his guest that 

night, 
And, waking him ere day, said : ' ' Here 

is gold ; 
My swiftest horse is saddled for thy 

flight ; 
Depart before the prying day grow 

bold." 



As one lamp lights another, nor grows 

less, 
So nobleness enkindleth nobleness. 

That inward light the stranger's face 

made grand, 
Which shines from all self-conquest; 

kneeling low, 
He bowed his forehead upon Yussouf s 

hand, 
Sobbing : "0 Sheik, I cannot leave thee 

so; 
I will repay thee ; all this thou hast 

done 
Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son ! " 

"Take thrice the gold," said Yussouf, 
"for with thee 

Into the desert, never to return, 

My one black thought shall ride away 
from me ; 

First-born, for whom by day and night 
I yearn, 

Balanced and just are all of God's de- 
crees ; 

Thou art avenged, my first-born, sleep 
in peace ! " 



THE DARKENED MIND. 

The fire is burning clear and blithely, 
Pleasantly whistles the winter wind ; 
We are about thee, thy friends and kin- 
dred, 
On us all flickers the firelight kind ; 
There thou sitt'st in thy wonted corner 
Lone and awful in thy darkened mind. 

There thou sitt'st ; now and then thou 

moanest ; 
Thou dost talk with what we cannot see, 
Look est at us with an eye so doubtful, 
It doth put us very far from thee ; 
There thou sittest ; we would fain be 

nigh thee, 
But we know that it can never be. 

We can touch thee, still we are no 

nearer ; 
Gather round thee, still thou art alone ; 
The wide chasm of reason is between us ; 
Thou confutest kindness with a moan ; 
We can speak to thee, and thou canst 

answer, 
Like two prisoners through a wall of 

stone. 



WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID. — A WINTER-EVENING HYMN. 363 



Hardest heart would call it very awful 
When thou look'st at us and seest — 0, 

what ? 
If we move away, thou sittest gazing 
With those vague eyes at the selfsame 

spot, 
And thou mutterest, thy hands thou 

wringest, 
Seeing something, — us thou seest not 

Strange it is that, in this open bright- 
ness, 

Thou shouldst sit in such a narrow cell ; 

Strange it is that thou shouldst be so 
lonesome 

Where those are who love thee all so 
well ; 

Hot so much of thee is left among us 

As the hum outliving the hushed bell. 



WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID. 

Rabbi Jehosha used to say 
That God made angels every day, 
Perfect as Michael and the rest 
First brooded in creation's nest, 
Whose only office was to cry 
Hosanna ! once, and then to die ; 
Or rather, with Life's essence blent, 
To be led home from banishment. 

Rabbi Jehosha had the skill 

To know that Heaven is in God's will ; 

And doing that, though for a space 

One heart-beat long, may win a grace 

As full of grandeur and of glow 

As Princes of the Chariot know. 

'T were glorious, no doubt, to be 
One of the strong-winged Hierarchy, 
To burn with Seraphs, or to shine 
With Cherubs, deathlessly divine ; 
Yet I, perhaps, poor earthly clod, 
Could 1 forget myself in God, 
Could I but find my nature's clew 
Simply as birds and blossoms do, 
And but for one rapt moment know 
'T is Heaven must come, not we must go, 
Should win my place as near the throne 
As the pearl-angel of its zone, 
And God would listen mid the throng 
For my one breath of perfect song, 
That, in its simple human way, 
Said all the Host of Heaven could say. 



ALL-SAINTS. 

One feast, of holy days the crest, 

I, though no Churchman, love to 
keep, 
All-Saints, — the unknown good that 
rest 
In God's still memory folded deep ; 
The bravely dumb that did their deed, 
And scorned to blot it with a name, 
Men of the plain heroic breed, 

That loved Heaven's silence more than 
fame. 

Such lived not in the past alone, 

But thread to-day the unheeding 
street, 
And stairs to Sin and Famine known 

Sing with the welcome of their feet ; 
The den they enter grows a shrine, 

The grim j sash an oriel burns, 
Their cup of water warms like wine, 

Their speech is filled from heavenly 



About their brows to me appears 

An aureole traced in tenderest light, 
The rainbow-gleam of smiles through 
tears 

In dying eyes, b} T them made bright, 
Of souls that shivered on the edge 

Of that chill ford repassed no more, 
And in their mercy felt the pledge 

And sweetness of the farther shore. 



A WINTER-EVENING HYMN TO MY 
FIRE. 



Beauty on my hearth-stone blazing ! 
To-night the triple Zoroaster 
Shall my prophet be and master : 
To-night will I pure Magian be, 
Hymns to thy sole honor raising, 
While thou leapest fast and faster, 
Wild with self- delighted glee, 
Or sink'st low and glowest faintly 
As an aureole still and saintly, 
Keeping cadence to my praising 
Thee ! still thee ! and only thee ! 



Elfish daughter of Apollo ! 

Thee, from thy father stolen and bound 



364 



A WINTER-EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE. 



To serve in Vulcan's clangorous smithy- 
Prometheus (primal Yankee) found, 
And, when he had tampered with thee, 
(Too confiding little maid i) 
In a reed's precarious hollow 
To our frozen earth conveyed : 
For he swore I know not what ; 
Endless ease should be thy lot, 
Pleasure that should never falter, 
Lifelong play, and not a duty 
Save to hover o'er the altar, 
Vision of celestial beauty, 
Fed with precious woods and spices ; 
Then, perfidious ! having got 
Thee in the net of his devices, 
Sold thee into endless slavery, 
Made thee a drudge to boil the pot, 
Thee, Helios' daughter, who dost bear 
His likeness in thy golden hair ; 
Thee, by nature wild and wavery, 
Palpitating, evanescent 
As the shade of Dian's crescent, 
Life, motion, gladness, everywhere ! 



in. 

Fathom deep men bury thee 
In the furnace dark and still, 
There, with dreariest mockery, 
Making thee eat, against thy will, 
Blackest Pennsylvanian stone ; 
But thou dost avenge thy doom, 
For, from out thy catacomb, 
Day and night thy wrath is blown 
In a withering simoom, 
And, adown that cavern drear, 
Thy black pitfall in the floor, 
Staggers the lusty antique cheer, 
Despairing, and is seen no more ! 



IV. 

Elfish I may rightly name thee ; 
We enslave, but cannot tame thee ; 
With fierce snatches, now and then, 
Thou pluck est at thy right again, 
And thy down- trod instincts savage 
To stealthy insurrection creep, 
While thy wittol masters sleep, 
And burst in undiscerning ravage : 
Then how thou shak'st thy bacchant 

locks ! 
While brazen pulses, far and near, 
Throb thick and thicker, wild with fear 
And dread conjecture, till the drear 
Disordered clangor every steeple rocks ! 



v. 

But when we make a friend of thee, 
And admit thee to the hall 
On our nights of festival, 
Then, Cinderella, who could see 
In thee the kitchen's stunted thrall ? 
Once more a Princess lithe and tall, 
Thou dancest with a whispering tread, 
While the bright marvel of thy head 
In crinkling gold floats all abroad, 
And gloriously dost vindicate 
The legend of thy lineage great, 
Earth-exiled daughter of the Pythian 

god! 
Now in the ample chimney-place, 
To honor thy acknowledged race, 
We crown thee high with laurel good, 
Thy shining father's sacred wood, 
Which, guessing thy ancestral right, 
Sparkles and snaps his dumb delight, 
And, at thy touch, poor outcast one, 
Feels through his gladdened fibres go 
The tingle and thrill and vassal glow 
Of instincts loyal to the sun. 

VI. 

thou of home the guardian Lar, 
And, when our earth hath wandered far 
Into the cold, and deep snow covers 
The walks of our New England lovers, 
Their sweet secluded evening-star ! 
'T was with thy rays the English Muse 
Ripened her mild domestic hues ; 
'T was by thy flicker that she conned 
The fireside wisdom that enrings 
With light from heaven familiar things ; 
By thee she found the homely faith 
In whose mild eyes thy comfort stay'th, 
When Death, extinguishing his torch, 
Gropes for the latch-string in the porch ; 
The love that wanders not beyond 
His earliest nest, but sits and sings 
While children smooth his patient 

wings ; 
Therefore with thee I love to read 
Our brave old poets : at thy touch how 

stirs 
Life in the withered words ! how swift 

recede 
Time's shadows ! and how glows again 
Through its dead mass the incandescent 

verse, 
As when upon the anvils of the brain 
It glittering lay, cyclopically wrought 
By the fast-throbbing hammers of the 

poet's thought ! 



fancy's casuistry. 



365 



Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred, 

The aspirations unattained, 

The rhythms so rathe and delicate, 

They bent and strained 

And broke, beneath the sombre weight 

Of any airiest mortal word. 

VII. 

What warm protection dost thou bend 
Round curtained talk of friend with 

friend, 
While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, 
To softest outline rounds the roof, 
Or the rude North with baffled strain 
Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane ! 
Now the kind nymph to Bacchus borne 
By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems 
Gifted upon her natal morn 
By him with fire, by her with dreams, 
Nicotia, dearer to the Muse 
Than all the grape's bewildering juice, 
We worship, unforbid of thee ; 
And, as her incense floats and curls 
In airy spires and wayward whirls, 
Or poises on its tremulous stalk . 
A flower of frailest revery, 
So winds and loiters, idly free, 
The current of unguided talk, 
Now laughter-rippled, and now caught 
In smooth, dark pools of deeper thought. 
Meanwhile thou mellowest every word, 
A sweetly unobtrusive third ; 
For thou hast magic beyond wine, 
To unlock natures each to each ; 
The unspoken thought thou canst 

divine ; 
Thou fill'st the pauses of the speech 
With whispers that to dream-land reach 
And frozen fancy-springs unchain 
In Arctic outskirts of the brain ; 
Sun of all inmost confidences, 
To thy rays doth the heart unclose 
Its formal calyx of pretences, 
That close against rude day's offences, 
And open its shy midnight rose ! 

VII. 

Thou holdest not the master key 

With which thy Sire sets free the mystic 
gates 

Of Past and Future : not for common 
fates 

Do they wide open fling, 

And, with a far-heard ring, 

Swing back their willing valves melo- 
diously ; 



Only to ceremonial days, 

And great processions of imperial song 

That set the world at gaze, 

Doth such high privilege belong : 

But thou a postern-door canst ope 

To humbler chambers of the selfsame 

palace 
Where Memory lodges, and her sister 

Hope, 
Whose being is but as a crystal chalice 
Which, with her various mood, the 

elder fills 
Of joy or sorrow, 
So coloring as she wills 
With hues of yesterday the unconscious 

morrow. 

IX. 

Thou sinkest, and my fancy sinks with 

thee : 
For thee I took the idle shell, 
And struck the unused chords again, 
But they are gone who listened well ; 
Some are in heaven, and all are far from 

me : 
Even as I sing, it turns to pain, 
And with vain tears my eyelids throb 

and swell : 
Enough ; I come not of the race 
That hawk their sorrows in the market- 
place. 
Earth stops the ears I best had loved to 

please ; 
Then break, ye untuned chords, or rust 

in peace ! 
As if a white-haired actor should come 

back 
Some midnight to the theatre void and 

black, 
And there rehearse his youth's great 

part 
Mid thin applauses of the ghosts, 
So seems it now : ye crowd upon my 

heart, 
And I bow down in silence, shadowy 

hosts ! 



FANCY'S CASUISTRY. 

How struggles with the tempest's swells 
That warning of tumultuous bells ! 
The fire is loose ! and frantic knells 

Throb fast and faster, 
As tower to tower confusedly tells 

News of disaster. 



366 



TO MR. JOHN BARTLETT. 



But on my far-off solitude 

No harsh alarums can intrude ; 

The terror comes to me subdued 

And charmed by distance, 
To deepen the habitual mood 

Of my existence. 

Are those, I muse, the Easter chimes ? 
And listen, weaving careless rhymes 
While the loud city's griefs and crimes 

Pay gentle allegiance 
To the line quiet that sublimes 

These dreamy regions. 

And when the storm o'erwhelms the 

shore, 
I watch entranced as, o'er and o'er, 
The light revolves amid the roar 

So still and saintly, 
Now large and near, now more and 
more 
Withdrawing faintly. 

This, too, despairing sailors see 
Flash out the breakers 'neath their lee 
In sudden snow, then lingeringly 

Wane tow'rd eclipse, 
While through the dark the shuddering 
sea 

Gropes for the ships. 

And is it right, this mood of mind 
That thus, in revery enshrined, 
Can in the world mere topics find 

For musing stricture, 
Seeing the life of humankind 

Only as picture ? 

The events in line of battle go ; 
In vain for me their trumpets blow 
As unto him that lieth low 

In death's dark arches, 
And through the sod hears throbbing 
slow 

The muffled marches. 

O Duty, am I dead to thee 
In this my cloistered ecstasy, 
In this lone shallop on the sea 

That drifts tow'rd Silence ? 
And are those visioned shores I see 

But sirens' islands ? 

My Dante frowns with lip-locked mien, 
As who would say, " 'T is those, I ween, 
Whom lifelong armor- chafe makes lean 
That win the laurel " : 



But where is Truth ? What does it 
mean, 
The world-old quarrel ? 

Such questionings are idle air : 
Leave what to do and what to spare 
To the inspiring moment's care, 

Nor ask for payment 
Of fame or gold, but just to wear 

Unspotted raiment. 



TO MR. JOHN BARTLETT, 

WHO HAD SENT ME A SEVEN-POUND 
TROUT. 

Fit for an Abbot of Theleme, 

For the whole Cardinals' College, or 
The Pope himself to see in dream 
Before his lenten vision gleam, 

He lies there, the sogdologer ! 

His precious flanks with stars besprent, 

Worthy to swim in Castaly ! 
The friend by whom such gifts are sent, 
For him shall bumpers full be spent, 
His health ! be Luck his fast ally ! 

I see him trace the wayward brook 

Amid the forest mysteries, 
Where at their shades shy aspens look, 
Or where, with many a gurgling crook, 
It croons its woodland histories. 

I see leaf- shade and sun -fleck lend 

Their tremulous, sweet vicissitude 
To smooth, dark pool, to crinkling 

bend, — 
(0, stew him, Ann, as 't were your 
friend, 
With amorous solicitude !) 

I see him step with caution due, 

Soft as if shod with moccasins, 
Grave as in church, for who plies you, 
Sweet craft, is safe as in a pew 

From all our common stock o' sins. 

The unerring fly I see him cast, 
That as a rose-leaf falls as soft, 

A flash ! a whirl ! he has him fast ! 

We tyros, how that struggle last 
Confuses and appalls us oft. 

Unfluttered he : calm as the sky 
Looks on our tragi-comedies, 



ODE TO HAPPINESS. 



367 



This way and that he lets him fly, 
A sunbeam-shuttle, then to die 

Lands him, with cool aplomb, at 
ease. - 

The friend who gave our board such gust, 

Life's care may he o'erstep it half, 
And, when Death hooks him, as he must, 
He '11 do it handsomely, I trust, 

And John H write his epitaph ! 

0, born beneath the Fishes' sign, 

Of constellations happiest, 
May he somewhere with Walton dine, 
May Horace send him Massic wine, 

And Burns Scotch drink, the nap- 
piest ! 

And when they come his deeds to weigh. 

And how he used the talents his, 
One trout-scale in the scales he '11 lay 
(If trout had scales), and 't will outsway 
The wrong side of the balances. 



ODE TO HAPPINESS. 

Spirit, that rarely comest now 
And only to contrast my gloom, 
Like rainbow-feathered birds that 
bloom 
A moment on some autumn bough 
That, with the spurn of their farewell, 
Sheds its last leaves, — thou once didst 
dwell 
"With me year-long, and make intense 
To boyhood's wisely vacant days 
Their fleet but all-sufficing grace 
Of trustful inexperience, 
While soul could still transfigure sense, 
And thrill, as with love's first caress, 
At life's mere unexpectedness. 

Days when my blood would leap and 
run 
As full of sunshine as a breeze, 
Or spray tossed up by Summer seas 
That doubts if it be sea or sun ! 
Days that flew swiftly like the band 

That played in Grecian games at strife, 
And passed from eager hand to hand 
The onward-dancing torch of life ! 

Wing-footed ! thou abid'st with him 
Who asks it not ; but he who hath 
Watched o'er the waves thy waning 
path, 

Shall nevermore behold returning 



Thy high-heaped canvas shoreward 
yearning ! 

Thou first reveal' st to us thy face 
Turned o'er the shoulder's parting grace, 

A moment glimpsed, then seen no 
more, — 
Thou whose swift footsteps we can trace 

Away from every mortal door. 

Nymph of the unreturning feet, 

How may I win thee back ? But no, 
I do thee wrong to call thee so ; 
'T is I am changed, not thou art fleet : 
The man thy presence feels again, 
Not in the blood, but in the brain, 
Spirit, that lov'st the upper air 
Serene and passionless and rare, 

Such as on mountain heights we find 
And wide-viewed uplands of the 
mind ; 
Or such as scorns to coil and sing 
Round any but the eagle's wing 

Of souls that with long upward beat 
Have won an undisturbed retreat 
Where, poised like winged victories, 
They mirror in relentless eyes 

The life broad-basking 'neath their 
feet, — 
Man ever with his Now at strife, 

Pained with first gasps of earthly air, 
Then praying Death the last to spare, 
Still fearful of the ampler life. 

Not unto them dost thou consent 
Who, passionless, can lead at ease 

A life of unalloyed content 

A life like that of land-locked seas, 

Who feel no elemental gush 

Of tidal forces, no fierce rush 

Of storm deep-grasping scarcely spent 
'Twixt continent and continent. 

Such quiet souls have never known 
Thy truer inspiration, thou 
Who lov'st to feel upon thy brow 

Spray from the plunging vessel thrown 
Grazing the tusked lee shore, the cliff 

That o'er the abrupt gorge holds its 
breath, 
Where the frail hair-breadth of an if 

Is all that sunders life and death : 

These, too, are cared-for, and round these 

Bends her mild crook thy sister Peace ; 
These in tin vexed dependence lie, 
Each 'neath his strip of household sky ; 

O'er these clouds wander, and the blue 

Hangs motionless the whole day 
through ; 



368 



VILLA FRANCA. 



Stars rise for them, and moons grow 



And lessen in such tranquil wise 
As joys and sorrows do that rise 

Within their nature's sheltered marge ; 
Their hours into each other flit 

Like the leaf-shado*ws of the vine 
And fig-tree under which they sit, 

And their still lives to heaven incline 
With an unconscious habitude, 

Unhistoried as smokes that rise 
From happy hearths and sight elude 

In kindred blue of morning skies. 

Wayward ! when once we feel thy lack, 
'T is worse than vain to woo thee back ! 

Yet there is one who seems to be 
Thine elder sister, in whose eyes 
A faint far northern light will rise 

Sometimes, and bring a dream of thee ; 
She is not that for which youth hoped, 

But she hath blessings all her own, 
Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped, 
' And faith to sorrow given alone : 
Almost I deem that it is thou 
Come back with graver matron brow, 

With deepened eyes and bated breath, 

Like one that somewhere hath met 
Death, 
But "No," she answers, " I am she 
Whom the gods love, Tranquillity : 

That other whom you seek forlorn 

Half earthly was ; but I am born 
Of the immortals, and our race 
Wears still some sadness on its face : 

He wins me late, but keeps me long, 
Who, dowered with every gift of passion, 
In that fierce flame can forge and 
fashion 

Of sin and self the anchor strong ; 
Can thence compel the driving force 
Of daily life's mechanic course, 
Nor less the nobler energies 
Of needful toil and culture wise ; 
Whose soul is worth the tempter's lure 
Who can renounce, and yet endure, 
To him I come, not lightly wooed, 
But won by silent fortitude." 



VILLA FRANCA. 

1S59. 

Wait a little : do we not wait ? 
Louis Napoleon is not Fate, 
Francis Joseph is not Time ; 



There 's One hath swifter feet than 

Crime ; 
Cannon-parliaments settle naught ; 
Venice is Austria's, — whose is Thought ? 
Minie is good, but, spite of change, 
Gutenberg's gun has the longest range. 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 

In the shadow, year out, year in, 

The silent headsman waits forever. 



Wait, we say : our years are long ; 
Men are weak, but Man is strong ; 
Since the stars first curved their rings, 
We have looked on many things ; 
Great wars come and great wars go, 
Wolf-tracks light on polar snow ; 
We shall see him come and gone, 
This second-hand Napoleon. 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 

In the shadow, year out, year in, 

The silent headsman waits forever. 



We saw the elder Corsican, 
And Clotho muttered as she span, 
While crowned lackeys bore the train, 
Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne : 
" Sister, stint not length of thread ! 
Sister, stay the scissors dread ! 
On Saint Helen's granite bleak, 
Hark, the vulture whets his beak ! " 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever'! 

In the shadow, j^ear out, year in, 

The silent headsman waits forever. 



The Bonapartes, we know their bees 
That wade in honey red to the knees ; 
Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep 

sound 
In dreamless garners underground : 
We know false glory's spendthrift race 
Pawning nations for feathers and lace ; 
It may be short, it may be long, 
"'T is reckoning-day!" sneers unpaid 
Wrong. 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 

In the shadow, year out, year in. 

The silent headsman waits forever. 

The Cock that wears the Eagle's skin 
Can promise what he ne'er could win ; 
Slavery reaped for fine words sown, 



THE MINER. — GOLD EGG. 



369 



System for all, and rights for none, 
Despots atop, a wild clan below, 
Such is the Gaul from long ago ; 
Wash the black from the Ethiop's face, 
Wash the past out of man or race ! 

Spin, spin, Cloth o, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 

In the shadow, year out, year in, 

The silent headsman waits forever. 



'Neath Gregory's throne a spider swings, 
And snares the people for the kings ; 
" Luther is dead ; old quarrels pass ; 
The stake's black scars are healed with 

grass " ; 
So dreamers prate ; did man ere live 
Saw priest or woman yet forgive ? 
But Luther's broom is left, and eyes 
Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. 

Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 

Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 

In the shadow, year out, year in, 

The silent headsman waits forever. 



Smooth sails the ship of either realm, 

Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm ; 

We look down the depths, and mark 

Silent workers in the dark 

Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs, 

Old instincts hardening to new beliefs ; 

Patience a little ; learn to wait ; 

Hours are long on the clock of Fate- 
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, 
But only God endures forever ! 



THE MINER. 

Down mid the tangled roots of things 
That coil about the central fire, 

I seek for that which giveth wings 
To stoop, not soar, to my desire. 

Sometimes I hear, as 't were a sigh, 
The sea's deep yearning far above, 

" Thou hast the secret not," I cry, 
" In deeper deeps is hid my Love." 

They think I burrow from the sun, 
In darkness, all alone, and weak ; 

Such loss were gain if He were won, 
For 't is the sun's own Sun I seek. 



"The earth," they murmur, "is the 
tomb 

That vainly sought his life to prison ; 
Why grovel longer in the gloom ? 

He is not here ; he hath arisen." 

More life for me where he hath lain 
Hidden while ye believed him dead, 

Than in cathedrals cold and vain, 
Built on loose sands of It is said. 

My search is for the living gold ; 

Him I desire who dwells recluse, 
And not his image worn and old, 

Day -servant of our sordid use. 

If him I find not, yet I find 

The ancient joy of cell and church, 

The glimpse, the surety undefined, 
The un quenched ardor of the search. 

Happier to chase a ftying goal 

Than to sit counting laurelled gains, 

To guess the Soul within the soul 
Than to be lord of what remains. 

Hide still, best Good, in subtile wise, 
Beyond my nature's utmost scope; 

Be ever absent from mine eyes 
To be twice present in my hope ! 



GOLD EGG: A DREAM-FANTASY. 

HOW A STUDENT IN SEARCH OF THE 
BEAUTIFUL FELL ASLEEP IN DRES- 
DEN OVER HERR PROFESSOR DOCTOR 
vischer's WISSENSCHAFT DES SCHO- 
NEN, AND WHAT CAME THEREOF. 

I swam with undulation soft, 

Adrift on Vischer's ocean, 
And, from my cockboat up aloft, 
Sent down my mental plummet oft 

In hope to reach a notion. 

But from the metaphysic sea 
No bottom was forthcoming, 

And all the while (how drearily !) 

In one eternal note of B 

My German stove kept humming. 



"What's Beauty?" mused I; 
told 
By synthesis ? analysis ? 



'is it 



370 



GOLD EGG. 



Have you not made us lead of gold ? 
To feed your crucible, not sold 
Our temple's sacred chalices ? " 

Then o'er my senses came a change ; 

My book seemed all traditions, 
Old legends of profoundest range, 
Diablery, and stories strange 

Of goblins, elves, magicians. 

Old gods in modern saints I found, 
Old creeds in strange disguises ; 
I thought them safely underground, 
And here they were, all safe and sound, 
Without a sign of phthisis. 

Truth was, my outward eyes were closed, 

Although I did not know it ; 
Deep into dream-land I had dozed, 
And so was happily transposed 
From proser into poet. 

So what I read took flesh and blood, 

And turned to living creatures : 
The words were but the dingy bud 
That bloomed, like Adam, from the mud, 
To human forms and features. 

I saw how Zeus was lodged once more 

By Baucis and Philemon ; 
The text said, " Not alone of yore, 
But every day, at every door, 

Knocks still the masking Demon." 

Daimon 't was printed in the book 

And, as I read it slowly, 
The letters stirred and changed, and 

took 
Jove's stature, the Olympian look 

Of painless melancholy. 

He paused upon the threshold worn : 
" With coin I cannot pay you ; 

Yet would I fain make some return ; 

The gift for cheapness do not spurn, 
Accept this hen, I pray you. 

" Plain feathers wears my Hemera, 

And has from ages olden ; 
She makes her nest in common hay, 
And yet, of all the birds that lay, 



He turned, and could no more be seen ; 
Old Baucis stared a moment, 



Then tossed poor Partlet on the green, 
And with a tone, half jest, half spleen, 
Thus made her housewife's com- 
ment : 

"The stranger had a queerish face, 

His smile was hardly pleasant, 
And, though he meant it for a grace, 
Yet this old hen of barnyard race 
Was but a stingy present. 

"She 's quite too old for laying eggs, 

Nay, even to make a soup of ; 
One only needs to see her legs, — 
You might as well boil down the pegs 
I made the brood-hen's coop of ! 

"Some eighteen score of such do I 

Raise every year, her sisters ; 
Go, in the woods your fortunes try, 
All day for one poor earthworm pry, 
And scratch your toes to blisters ! " 

Philemon found the rede was good, 
And, turning on the poor hen, 

He clapt his hands, and stamped, and 
shooed, 

Hunting the exile tow'rd the wood, 
To house with snipe and moor-hen. 

A poet saw and cried : " Hold ! hold ! 

What are you doing, madman ? 
Spurn you more wealth than can be 

told, 
The fowl that lays the eggs of gold, 

Because she's plainly clad, man?" 

To him Philemon: "I '11 not balk 

Thy will with any shackle ; 
Wilt add a burden to thy walk? 
There ! take her without further talk ; 

You 're both but fit to cackle ! " 

But scarce the poet touched the bird, 

It swelled to stature regal; 
And when her cloud-wide wings she 

stirred, 
A whisper as of doom was heard, 

'T was Jove's bolt-bearing eagle. 

As when from far-off cloud-bergs springs 

A crag, and, hurtling under, 
From cliff to cliff the rumor flings, 
So she from flight-foreboding wings 
Shook out a murmurous thunder. 



A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND. 



371 



She gripped the poet to her breast, 

And ever, upward soaring, 
Earth seemed a new moon in the west, 
And then one light among the rest 

Where squadrons lie at mooring. 

How tell to what heaven-hallowed seat 

The eagle bent his courses ? 
The w r aves that on its bases beat, 
The gales that round it weave and fleet, 

Are life's creative forces. 

Here was the bird's primeval nest, 

High on a promontory 
Star-pharosed, where she takes her rest 
To brood new seons 'neath her breast, 

The future's unfledged glory. 

I know not how, but I was there 

All feeling, hearing, seeing ; 
It was not wind that stirred my hair 
But living breath, the essence rare 
Of unembodied being. 

And in the nest an egg of gold 
Lay soft in self-made lustre ; 
Gazing whereon, what depths untold 
Within, what marvels manifold, 
Seemed silently to muster ! 

Daily such splendors to confront 

Is still to me and you sent ? 
It glowed as when Saint Peter's front, 
Illumed, forgets its stony wont, 

And seems to throb translucent. 

One saw therein the life of man, 

(Or so the poet found it,) 
The yolk and white, conceive who can, 
W 7 ere the glad earth, that, floating, span 

In the glad heaven around it. 

I knew this as one knows in dream, 

Where no effects to causes 
Are chained as in our work-day scheme, 
And then was wakened by a scream 

That seemed to come from Baucis. 

"Bless Zeus!" she cried, "I'm safe 
below ! " 

First pale, then red as coral ; 
And I, still drowsy, pondered slow, 
And seemed to find, but hardly know, 

Something like this for moral. 

F<ach day the world is born anew 
For him who takes it rightly ; 



Not fresher that which Adam knew, 
Not sweeter that whose moonlit dew 
Entranced Arcadia nightly. 

Rightly? That 's simply: 't is to see 
Some substance casts these shadows 
Which we call Life and History, 
That aimless seem to chase and flee 
Like wind-gleams over meadows. 

Simply ? That 's nobly : 't is to know 

That God may still be met with, 
Nor groweth old, nor doth bestow 
These senses fine, this brain aglow, 
To grovel and forget with. 

Beauty, Herr Doctor, trust in me, 

No chemistry will win you ; 
Charis still rises from the sea : ' 
If you can't find her, might it be 
Because you seek within you ? 



A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND. 

Alike I hate to be your debtor, 
Or write a mere perfunctory letter ; 
For letters, so it seems to me, 
Our careless quintessence should be, 
Our real nature's truant play 
When Consciousness looks t' other way, 
Not drop by drop, with watchful skill, 
Gathered in Art's deliberate still, 
But life's insensible completeness 
Got as the ripe grape gets its sweetness, 
As if it had a way to fuse 
The golden sunlight into juice. 
Hopeless my mental pump I try; 
The boxes hiss, the tube is dry; 
As those petroleum wells that spout 
Awhile like M. C.'s, then give out, 
My spring, once full as Arethusa, 
Is a mere bore as dry 's Creusa ; 
And yet you ask me why I 'm glum, 
And why my graver Muse is dumb. 
Ah me ! I 've reasons manifold 
Condensed in one, — I 'm getting old ! 

When life, once past its fortieth year, 
W^heels up its evening hemisphere, 
The mind's own shadow, which the boy 
Saw onward point to hope and joy, 
Shifts round, irrevocably set 
Tow'rd morning's loss and vain regret, 
And, argue with it as we will, 
The clock is unconverted still. 



372 



A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND. 



" But count the gains," I hear you say, 
" Which far the seeming loss outweigh ; 
Friendships built firm 'gainst flood and 

wind 
On rock-foundations of the mind ; 
Knowledge instead of scheming hope ; 
For wild adventure, settled scope ; 
Talents, from surface-ore profuse, 
Tempered and edged to tools for use ; 
Judgment, for passion's headlong whirls ; 
Old sorrows crystalled into pearls ; 
Losses by patience turned to gains, 
Possessions now, that once were pains ; 
Joy's blossom gone, as go it must, 
To ripen seeds of faith and trust ; 
Why heed a snow-flake on the roof 
If fire within keep Age aloof 
Though blundering north-winds push 

and strain 
With palms benumbed against the pane ? " 

My dear old Friend, you 're very wise ; 

We always are with others' eyes, 

And see so clear ! (our neighbor's deck 

on) 
What reef the idiot 's sure to wreck on ; 
Folks when they learn how life has 

quizzed 'em 
Are fain to make a shift with Wisdom, 
And, finding she nor breaks nor bends, 
Give her a letter to their friends. 
Draw passion's torrent whoso will 
Through sluices smooth to turn a mill, 
And, taking solid toll of grist, 
Forget the rainbow in the mist, 
The exulting leap, the aimless haste 
Scattered in iridescent waste ; 
Prefer who likes the sure esteem 
To cheated youth's midsummer dream, 
When every friend was more than 

Damon, 
Each quicksand safe to build a fame on ; 
Believe that prudence snug excels 
Youth's gross of verdant spectacles, 
Through which earth's withered stubble 

seen 
Looks autumn-proof as painted green, — 
I side with Moses 'gainst the masses, 
Take you the drudge, give me the 

glasses i 
And, for your talents shaped with prac- 
tice, 
Convince me first that such the fact is ; 
Let whoso likes be beat, poor fool, 
On life's hard stithy to a tool, 
Be whoso will a ploughshare made, 
Let me remain a jolly blade ! 



What 's Knowledge, with her stocks and 
lands, 

To gay Conjecture's yellow strands ? 

What 's watching her slow flocks in- 
crease 

To ventures for the golden fleece ? 

What her deep ships, safe under lee, 

To youth's light craft, that drinks the 
sea, 

For Flying Islands making sail, 

And failing where 't is gain to fail ? 

Ah me ! Expereince (so we 're told), 

Time's crucible, turns lead to gold ; 

Yet what 's experience won but dross, 

Cloud-gold transmuted to our loss ? 

What but base coin the best event 

To the untried experiment ? 

'T was an old couple, says the poet, 
That lodged the gods and did not know 

it; 
Youth sees and knows them as they 

were 
Before Olympus' cop was bare ; 
From Svvampscot's flats his eye divine 
Sees Venus rocking on the brine, 
With lucent limbs, that somehow scat- 
ter a 
Charm that turns Doll to Cleopatra ; 
Bacchus (that now is scarce induced 
To give Eld's lagging blood a boost), 
With cymbals' clang and pards to draw 

him, 
Divine as Ariadne saw him, 
Storms through Youth's pulse with all 

his train 
And wins new Indies in his brain ; 
Apollo (with the old a trope, 
A sort of finer Mister Pope), 
Apollo — but the Muse forbids ; 
At his approach cast down thy lids, 
And think it joy enough to hear 
Far off his arrows singing clear ; 
He knows enough who silent knows 
The quiver chiming as he goes ; 
He tells too much who e'er betrays 
The shining Archer's secret ways. 

Dear Friend, you 're right and I am 

wrong ; 
My quibbles are not worth a song, 
And I sophistically tease 
My fancy sad to tricks like these. 
I could not cheat you if I would ; 
You know me and my jesting mood, 
Mere surface-foam, for pride concealing 
The purpose of my deeper feeling. 



AN EMBER PICTURE. 



373 



I have not spilt one drop of joy- 
Poured in the senses of the boy, 
Nor Nature fails my walks to bless 
With all her golden inwardness ; 
And as blind nestlings, unafraid, 
Stretch up wide -mouthed to every shade 
By which their downy dream is stirred, 
Taking it for the mother-bird, 
So, when God's shadow, which is light, 
Unheralded, by day or night, 
My wakening instincts falls across, 
Silent as sunbeams over moss, 
In my heart's nest half-conscious things 
Stir with a helpless sense of wings, 
Lift themselves up, and tremble long 
With premonitions sweet of song. 

Be patient, and perhaps (who knows ?) 
These may be winged one day like 

those ; 
If thrushes, close-embowered to sing, 
Pierced through with June's delicious 

sting ; 
If swallows, their half-hour to run 
Star-breasted in the setting sun. 
At first they 're but the unfledged proem, 
Or songless schedule of a poem ; 
When from the shell they 're hardly dry 
If some folks thrust them forth, must I ? 

But let me end with a comparison 

Never yet hit upon by e'er a son 

Of our American Apollo, 

(And there 's where I shall beat them 

hollow, 
If he is not a courtly St. John, 
But, as West said, a Mohawk Injun.) 
A poem 's like a cruise for whales : 
Through untried seas the hunter sails, 
His prow dividing waters known 
To the blue iceberg's hulk alone ; 
At last, on farthest edge of day, * 
He marks the smoky puff of spray ; 
Then with bent oars the shallop flies 
To where the basking quarry lies ; 
Then the excitement of the strife, 
The crimsoned w T aves, — ah, this is life ! 

But, the dead plunder once secured 
And safe beside the vessel moored, 
All that had stirred the blood before 
Is so much blubber, nothing more, 
(I mean no pun, nor image so 
Mere sentimental verse, you know,) 
And all is tedium, smoke, and soil, 
In trying out the noisome oil. 



Yes, this is life ! And so the bard 
Through briny deserts, never scarred 
Since Noah's keel, a subject seeks, 
And lies upon the watch for weeks ; 
That once harpooned and helpless lying, 
What follows is but weary trying. 

Now I 've a notion, if a poet 

Beat up for themes, his verse will show 

it; 

I w 7 ait for subjects that hunt me, 
By day or night won't let me be, 
And hang about me like a curse, 
Till they have made me into verse, 
From line to line my fingers tease 
Beyond my knowledge, as the bees 
Build no new cell till those before 
With limpid summer-sweet run o'er ; 
Then, if I neither sing nor shine, 
Is it the subject's fault, or mine? 



AN EMBER PICTURE. 

How strange are the freaks of memory ! 

The lessons of life we forget, 
While a trifle, a trick of color, 

In the wonderful w r eb is set, — 

Set by some mordant of fancy, 
And, spite of the wear and tear 

Of time or distance or trouble, 
Insists on its right to be there. 

A chance had brought us together ; 

Our talk w r as of matters-of-course ; 
We were nothing, one to the other, 

But a short half-hour's resource. 

We spoke of French acting and actors, 
And their easy, natural way : 

Of the weather, for it w r as raining 
As we drove home from the play. 

We debated the social nothings 
We bore ourselves so to discuss ; 

The thunderous rumors of battle 
Were silent the w 7 hile for us. 

Arrived at her door, we left her 

With a drippingly hurried adieu, 
And our wheels went crunching the 

gravel 
• Of the oak-darkened avenue. 

As we drove away through the shadow, 
The candle she held in the door 



374 



TO H. W. L. 



From rain-varnished tree-trunk to tree- 
trunk 
Flashed fainter, and flashed no 
more ; — 

Flashed fainter, then wholly faded 
Before we had passed the wood ; 

But the light of the face behind it 
Went with me and stayed for good. 

The vision of scarce a moment. 
And hardly marked at the time, 

It comes unbidden to haunt me, 
Like a scrap of ballad-rhyme. 

Had she beauty ? Well, not what they 
call so ; 

You may find a thousand as fair ; 
And yet there 's her face in my^nemory 

With no special claim to be there. 

As I sit sometimes in the twilight, 
And call back to life in the coals 

Old faces and hopes and fancies 

Long buried, (good rest to their 
souls !) 

Her face shines out in the embers ; 

I see her holding the light, 
And hear the crunch of the gravel 

And the sweep of the rain that night. 

'T is a face that can never grow older, 
That never can part with its gleam, 

*T is a gracious possession forever, 
For is it not all a dream ? 



TO H. W. L., 

ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 27TH FEBRUARY, 
1867. 

I need not praise the sweetness of his 

song, 
Where limpid verse to limpid verse 

succeeds 
Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing 

lest he wrong 
The new moon's mirrored skiff, he slides 

along, 
Full without noise, and whispers in 

his reeds. 

With loving breath of all the winds his" 
name 
Is blown about the world, but to his 
friends 



A sweeter secret hides behind his fame, 
And Love steals shyly through the loud 

acclaim 
To murmur a God bless you I and there 

ends. 

As I muse backward up the checkered 
years 
Wherein so much was given, so much 
was lost, 
Blessings in both kinds, such as cheapen 

tears, — 
But hush ! this is not for profaner ears ; 
Let them drink molten pearls nor 
dream the cost. 

Some suck up poison from a sorrow's 

core, 
As naught but nightshade grew upon 

earth's ground ; 
Love turned all his to heart's-ease, and 

the more 
Fate tried his bastions, she but forced a 

door 
Leading to sweeter manhood and more 

sound. 

Even as a wind- waved fountain's sway- 
ing shade 
Seems of mixed race, a gray wraith 
shot with sun, 

So through his trial faith translucent 
rayed 

Till darkness, half disnatured so, be- 
trayed 
A heart of sunshine that would fain 
o'errun. 

Surely if skill in song the shears may 
stay 
And of its purpose cheat the charmed 
abyss, 
If our poor life be lengthened by a lay, 
He shall not go, although his presence 
may, 
And the next age in praise shall 
double this. 

Long days be his, and each as lusty- 
sweet 
As gracious natures find his song to 
be ; 
May Age steal on with softly- cadenced 

feet 
Falling in music, as for him were meet 
Whose choicest verse is harsher-toned 
than he ! 



THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. — IN THE TWILIGHT. 375 



THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. 

" Come forth ! " my catbird calls to me, 
* ' And hear me sing a cavatina 

That, in this old familiar tree, 
Shall hang a garden of Alcina. 

" These buttercups shall brim with wine 
Beyond all Lesbian juice or Massic ; 

May not New England be divine ? 
My ode to ripening summer classic ? 

" Or, if to me you will not hark, 
By Beaver Brook a thrush is ringing 

Till all the alder-coverts dark 

Seem sunshine-dappled with his sing- 

, m g- 

" Come out beneath the un mastered sky, 
With its emancipating spaces, 

And learn to sing as well as I, 
Without premeditated graces. 

"What boot your many-volumed gains, 
Those withered leaves forever turning, 

To win, at best, for all your pains, 
A nature mummy- wrapt in learning ? 

" The leaves wherein true wisdom lies 
On living trees the sun are drinking ; 

Those white clouds, drowsing through 
the skies, 
Grew not so beautiful by thinking. 

" Come out ! with me the oriole cries, 
Escape the demon that pursues you ! 

And, hark, the cuckoo weatherwise, 
Still hiding, farther onward wooes 
you." 

" Alas, dear friend, that, all my days, 
Has poured from that syringa thicket 

The quaintly discontinuous lays 
To which I hold a season-ticket, 

1 A season-ticket cheaply bought 
With a dessert of pilfered berries, 
And who so oft my soul hast caught 
With morn and evening voluntaries, 

" Deem me not faithless, if all day 
Among my dusty books I linger, 

No pipe, like thee, for June to play 
With fancy -led, half-conscious finger. 

" A bird is singing in my brain 
And bubbling o'er with mingled fan- 
cies, 



Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain 
Fed with the sap of old romances. 

" I ask no ampler skies than those ^ 
His magic music rears above me, 

No falser friends, no truer foes, — 
And does not Dona Clara love me? 

" Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars, 
A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing, 

Then silence deep with breathless stars, 
And overhead a white hand flashing. 

" music of all moods and climes, 
Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly, 

Where still, between the Christian 
chimes, 
The moorish cymbal tinkles faintly ! 

" life borne lightly in the hand, 
For friend or foe with grace Castilian ! 

valley safe in Fancy's land, 

Not tramped to mud yet by the mil- 
lion ! 

" Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale 
To his, my singer of all weathers, 

My Calderon, my nightingale, 

My Arab soul in Spanish feathers. 

"Ah, friend, these singers dead so long, 
And still, God knows, in purgatory, 

Give its best sweetness to all song, 
To Nature's self her better glory. ,, 



IN THE TWILIGHT. 

Men sa}?- the sullen instrument, 
That, from the Master's bow, 
With pangs of joy or woe, 
Feels music's soul through every fibre 
sent, 
Whispers the ravished strings 
More than he knew or meant ; 

Old summers in its memory glow ; 

The secrets of the wind it sings ; 

It hears the April-loosened springs; 

And mixes with its mood 

All it dreamed when it stood 

In the murmurous pine-wood 

Long ago ! 

The magical moonlight then 
Steeped every bough and cone ; 



376 



THE FOOT-PATH. 



The roar of the brook in the glen 

Came dim from the distance blown ; 
The wind through its glooms sang low, 
And it swayed to and fro 
With delight as it stood, 
In the wonderful wood, 
Long ago ! 

my life, have we not had seasons 
That only said, Live and rejoice ? 
That asked not for causes and reasons, 

But made us all feeling and voice ? 
When we went with the winds in their 
blowing, 
When Nature and we were peers, 
And we seemed to share in the flowing 
Of the inexhaustible years ? 
Have we not from the earth drawn 

juices 
Too fine for earth's sordid uses ? 
Have I heard, have I seen 

All I feel and I know ? 
Doth my heart overween ? 
Or could it have been 
Long ago ? 

Sometimes a breath floats by me, 
An odor from Dreamland sent, 
That makes the ghost seem nigh me 

Of a splendor that came and went, 
Of a life lived somewhere, I know not 

In what diviner sphere, 
Of memories that stay not and go not, 
Like music heard once by an ear 
That cannot forget or reclaim it, 
A something so shy, it would shame 
it 
To make it a show, 
A something too vague, could I 
name it, 
For others to know, 
As if I had lived it or dreamed it, 
As if I had acted or schemed it, 
Long ago ! 

And yet, could I live it over, 

This life that stirs in my brain, 
Could I be both maiden and lover, 
Moon and tide, bee and clover, 

As I seem to have been, once again, 
Could I but speak and show it, 

This pleasure more sharp than pain, 
That baffles and lures me so, 
The world should not lack a poet, 
Such as it had 
In the ages glad, 



THE FOOT-PATH. 

It mounts athwart the windy hill 
Through sallow slopes of upland bare, 

And Fancy climbs with foot-fall still 
Its narrowing curves that end in air. 

By day, a warmer-hearted blue 

Stoops softly to that topmost swell ; 

Its thread-like windings seem a clew 
To gracious climes where all is well. 

By night, far yonder, I surmise 

An ampler world than clips my ken, 

Where the great stars of happier skies 
Commingle nobler fates of men. 

I look and long, then haste me home, 
Still master of my secret rare ; 

Once tried, the path would end in Rome, 
But now it leads me everywhere. 

Forever to the new it guides, 

From former good, old overmuch ; 

What Nature for her poets hides, 
'T is wiser to divine than clutch. 

The bird I list hath never come 
Within the scope of mortal ear ; 

My prying step would make him dumb, 
And the fair tree, his shelter, sear. 

Behind the hill, behind the sky, 

Behind my inmost thought, he sings ; 

No feet avail ; to hear it nigh, 

The song itself must lend the wings. 

Sing on, sweet bird close hid, and raise 
Those angel stairways in my brain, 

That climb from these low- vaulted days 
To spacious sunshines far from pain. 

Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet, 
I leave thy covert haunt untrod, 

And envy Science not her feat 
To make a twice-told tale of God. 

They said the fairies tript no more, 
And long ago that Pan was dead ; 

*T was but that fools preferred to bore 
Earth's rind inch-deep for truth in- 
stead. 

Pan leaps and pipes all summer long, 
The fairies dance each full-mooned 
night, 

Would we but doff our lenses strong, 
And trust our wiser eyes' delight. 



THE FOOT-PATH. 



377 



City of Elf-land, just without 
Our seeing, marvel ever new, 

Glimpsed in fair weather, a sweet doubt 
Sketched-in, mirage-like, on the blue. 

I build thee in yon sunset cloud, 

Whose edge allures to climb the 
height ; 
I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loud, 
From still pools dusk with dreams of 
night. 

(Thy gates are shut to hardiest will, 
Thy countersign of long-lost speech, — 



Those fountained courts, those chambers 
still, 
Fronting Time's far East, who shall 
reach ? 

I know not, and will never pry, 
But trust our human heart for all ; 

Wonders that from the seeker fly 
Into an open sense may fall. 

Hide in thine own soul, and surprise 
The password of the unwary elves ; 

Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies ; 
Unsought, they whisper it themselves. 



POEMS OF THE WAE. 



THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD. 

October, 1861. 

Along a river-side, I know not where, 
1 walked one night in mystery of dream ; 
A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my 

hair, 
To think what chanced me by the pallid 

gleam 
Of a moon-wraith that waned through 

haunted air. 

Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow- 
mist 

Their halos, wavering thistledowns of 
light ; 

The loon, that seemed to mock some 
goblin tryst, 

Laughed ; and the echoes, huddling in 
affright, 

Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down 
the night. 

Then all was silent, till there smote my 

ear 
A movement in the stream that checked 

my breath : 
Was it the slow plash of a wading deer ? 
But something said, "This water is of 

Death ! 
The Sisters wash a shroud, — ill thing 

to hear ! " 

I, looking then, beheld the ancient 
Three 

Known to the Greek's and to the North- 
man's creed, 

That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree, 

Still crooning, as they weave their end- 
less brede, 

One song: "Time was, Time is, and 
Time shall be." 



No wrinkled crones were they, as I had 

deemed, 
But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, 
To mourner, lover, poet, ever seemed ; 
Something too high for joy, too deep for 

sorrow, 
Thrilled in their tones, and from their 

faces gleamed. 

"Still men and nations reap as they 

have strawn," 
So sang they, working at their task the 

while ; 
1 ' The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere 

dawn : 
For Austria ? Italy ? the Sea-Queen's 

isle? 
O'er what quenched grandeur must our 

shroud be drawn ? 

" Or is it for a younger, fairer corse, 
That gathered States like children round 

his knees, 
That tamed the wave to be his posting- 
horse, 
Feller of forests, linker of the seas, 
Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son 
of Thor's ? 

" What make we, murmur' st thou ? and 

what are we ? 
When empires must be wound, we bring 

the shroud, 
The time- old web of the implacable 

Three : 
Is it too coarse for him, the young and 

proud ? 
Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it, — 

why not he ? 

"Is there no hope?" I moaned, "so 

strong, so fair ! 
Our Fowler whose proud bird would 

brook erewhile 



THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD. 



379 



No rival's swoop in all our western air ! 
Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file 
For him, life's morn yet golden in his 
hair? 

" Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying 
dames ! 

I see, half seeing. Tell me, ye who 
scanned 

The stars, Earth's elders, still must no- 
blest aims 

Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sands ? 

Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of 
names ? " 

"When grass-blades stiffen with red 

battle-dew, 
Ye deem we choose the victor and the 

slain : 
Sajr, choose we them that shall beleal 

and true 
To the heart's longing, the high faith of 

brain ? 
Yet there the victory lies, if ye but 

knew. 

"Three roots bear up Dominion: 

Knowledge, Will, — 
These twain are strong, but stronger yet 

the third, — 
Obedience, — 't is the great tap-root that 

m still, 
Knit round the rock of Duty, is not 

stirred, 
Though Heaven-loosed tempests spend 

their utmost skill. 

" Is the doom sealed for Hesper ? 'T is 

not we 
Denounce it, but the Law before all 

time : 
The brave makes danger opportunity ; 
The waverer, paltering with the chance 

sublime, 
Dwarfs it to peril : which shall Hesper 

be? 

" Hath he let vultures climb his eagle's 

seat 
To make Jove's bolts purveyors of their 

maw ? 
Hath he the Many's plaudits found more 

sweet 
Than Wisdom ? held Opinion's wind for 

Law ? 
Then let him hearken for the doomster's 

feet ! 



"Rough are the steps, slow-hewn in. 
flintiest rock, 

States climb to power by ; slippery those 
with gold 

Down which they stumble to eternal 
mock : 

No chaff erer's hand shall long the scep- 
tre hold, 

Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell 
the block. 

* ' We sing old Sagas, songs of weal and 

woe, 
Mystic because too cheaply understood ; 
Dark sayings are not ours ; men hear 

and know, 
See Evil weak, see strength alone in 

Good, 
Yet hope to stem God's fire with walls of 

tow. 

" Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time 
Is, 

That offers choice of glory or of gloom ; 
The solver makes Time Shall Be surely 

his. 
But hasten, Sisters ! for even now the 

tomb 
Grates its slow hinge and calls from the 

abyss." 
• 

"But not for him," I cried, "not yet 

for him, 
Whose large horizon, westering, star by 

star 
Wins from the void to where on Ocean's 

rim 
The sunset shuts the world with golden 

bar, 
Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow 

dim ! 

' ' His shall be larger manhood, saved 

for those 
That walk unblenching through the 

trial-fires ; 
Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst 

of woes, 
And he no base-born son of craven sires, 
Whose eye need blench confronted with 

his foes. 

* ' Tears may be ours, but proud, for those 

who win 
Death's royal purple in the foeman's 

lines ; 



380 



TWO SCENES FKOM THE LIFE OF BLONDEL. 



Peace, too, brings tears ; and mid the 

battle-din, 
The wiser ear some text of God divines, 
For the sheathed blade may rust with 

darker sin. 

"God, give us peace ! not such as lulls 
to sleep, 

But sword on thigh, and brow with pur- 
pose knit ! 

And let our Ship of State to harbor 
sweep, 

Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit, 

And her leashed thunders gathering for 
their leap ! " 

So cried I with clenched hands and pas- 
sionate pain, 

Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side ; 

Again the loon laughed mocking, and 
again 

The echoes bayed far down the night 
and died, 

While waking I recalled my wandering 
brain. 



TWO SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF 
BLONDEL. 

Autumn, 1863. # 

Scene I. — Near a castle in Germany. 

'T were no hard task, perchance, to win 

The popular laurel for my song ; 
'T were only to comply with sin, 

And own the crown, though snatched 
by wrong : 
Bather Truth's chaplet let me wear, 

Though sharp as death its thorns may 
sting ; 
Loyal to Loyalty, I bear 

No badge but of my rightful king. 

Patient by town and tower I wait, 

Or o'er the blustering moorland go ; 
I buy no praise at cheaper rate, 

Or what faint hearts may fancy so ; 
For me, no joy in lady's bower, 

Or hall, or tourney, will I sing, 
Till the slow stars wheel round the hour 

That crowns my hero and my king. 

While all the land runs red with strife, 
And wealth is won by pedler-crimes, 
Let who will find content in life 



And tinkle in unmanly rhymes; 
I wait and seek ; through dark and 
light, 

Safe in my heart my hope I bring, 
Till I once more my faith may plight 

To him my whole soul owns her king. 

When power is filched by drone and 
dolt, 
And, with caught breath and flashing 
.eye, 
Her knuckles whitening round the bolt, 

Vengeance leans eager from the sky, 
While this and that the people guess, 

And to the skirts of praters cling, 
Who court the crowd they should com- 
press, 
I turn in scorn to seek my king. 

Shut in what tower of darkling chance 

Or dungeon of a narrow doom, 
Dream' st thou of battle-axe and lance 
That for the Cross make crashing 
room ? 
Come ! with hushed breath the battle 
waits 
In the wild van thy mace's swing ; 
While doubters parley with their fates, 
Make thou thine own and ours, my 
king ! 

0, strong to keep upright the old, 

And wise to buttress with the new, 
Prudent, as only are the bold, 

Clear-eyed, as only are the true, 
To foes benign, to friendship stern, 

Intent to imp Law's broken wing, 
Who would not die, if death might earn 

The right to kiss thy hand, my king ? 



Scene II. — An Inn near the Chdteau 
of Chahis. 

Well, the whole thing is over, and here 
I sit 
With one arm in a sling and a milk- 
score of gashes, 
And this flagon of Cyprus must e'en 
warm my wit, 
Since what 's left of youth's flame is a 
head flecked with ashes. 
I remember I sat in this very same 
inn, — 
I was young then, and one young man 
thought I was handsome, — 



MEMORLE POSITUM. 



381 



I had found out what prison King 
Richard was in, 
And was spurring for England to push 
on the ransom. 

How I scorned the dull souls that sat 
guzzling around 
And knew not my secret nor recked 
my derision ! 
Let the world sink or swim, John or 
Richard be crowned, 
All one, so the beer-tax got lenient 
revision. 
How little I dreamed, as I tramped up 
and down, 
That granting our wish one of Fate's 
saddest jokes is ! 
I had mine with a vengeance, — my 
king got his crown, 
And made his whole business to break 
other folks' s. 

I might as well join in the safe old turn, 
turn : 
A hero 's an excellent loadstar, — but, 
bless ye, 
"What infinite odds 'twixt a hero to come 
And your only too palpable hero in esse! 
Precisely the odds (such examples are 
rife) 
'Twixt the poem conceived and the 
rhyme we make show of, 
'Twixt the boy's morning dream and the 
wake-up of life, 
'Twixt the Blondel God meant and a 
Blondel I know of ! 

But the world 's better off, I 'm con- 
vinced of it now, 
Than if heroes, like buns, could be 
bought for a penny 
To regard all mankind as their haltered 
milch-cow, 
And just care for themselves. "Well, 
God cares for the many ; 
For somehow the poor old Earth blun- 
ders along, 
Each son of hers adding his mite of 
unfitness, 
And, choosing the sure way of coming 
out wrong, 
Gets to port as the next generation 
will witness. 

You think her old ribs have come all 
crashing through, 
If a whisk of Fate's broom snap your 
cobweb asunder ; 



But her rivets were clinched by a wiser 
than you, 
And our sins cannot push the Lord's 
right hand from under. 
Better one honest man who can wait for 
God's mind 
In our poor shifting scene here though 
heroes were plenty ! 
Better one bite, at forty, of Truth's bitter 
rind, 
Than the hot wine that gushed from 
the vintage of twenty ! 

I see it all now : when I wanted a king, 
'T was the kingship that failed in 
myself I was seeking, — 
'T is so much less easy to do than to 
sing, 
So much simpler to reign by a proxy 
than be king ! 
Yes, I think I do see : after all 's said 
and sung, 
Take this one rule of life and you 
never will rue it, — 
'T is but do your own duty and hold 
your own tongue 
And Blondel were royal himself, if he 
knew it ! 



MEMORLE POSITUM. 

K. G. S. 
I. 

Beneath the trees, 
My lifelong friends in this dear spot, 
Sad now for eyes that see them not 
I hear the autumnal breeze 
"Wake the sear leaves to sigh for gladness 

gone, 
"Whispering hoarse presage of obliv- 
ion, — 
Hear, restless as the seas, 
Time's grim feet rustling through the 

withered grace 
Of many a spreading realm and strong- 
stemmed race, 
Even as my own through these. 

"Why make we moan 

For loss that doth enrich us yet 

With upward yearnings of regret ? 

Bleaker than unmossed stone 

Our lives were but for this immortal gain 

Of unstilled longing and inspiring pain! 



382 



MEMORLE POSITUM. 



As thrills of long-hushed tone 
Live in the viol, so our souls grow fine 
With keen vibrations from the touch 
divine 

Of noble natures gone. 

'T were indiscreet 
To vex the shy and sacred grief 
"With harsh obtrusions of relief ; 
Yet, Verse, with noiseless feet, 
Go whisper : " This death hath far 

choicer ends 
Than slowly to impearl in hearts of 
friends ; 
These obsequies 't is meet 
Not to seclude in closets of the heart, 
But, church-like, with wide doorways, 
to impart 
Even to the heedless street." 



II. 

Brave, good, and true, 
I see him stand before me now, 
And read again on that young brow, 
Where every hope was new, 
Hoiv sweet vjere life ! Yet, by the mouth 

firm-set, • 
And look made up for Duty's utmost 
debt, 
I could divine he knew 
That death within the sulphurous hos- 
tile lines, 
In the mere wreck of nobly-pitched 
designs, 
Plucks heart's- ease, and not rue. 

Happy their end 
Who vanish down life's evening stream 
Placid as swans that drift in dream 
Round the next river-bend ! 
Happy long life, with honor at the 

close 
Friends' painless tears, the softened 
thought of foes'! 
And yet, like him, to spend 
All at a gush, keeping our first faith 

sure 
From mid-life's doubt and eld's content- 
ment poor, — 
What more could Fortune send? 



Right in the van, 
On the red rampart's slippery swell, 
With heart that beat a charge, he fell 

Foeward, as fits a man ; 



But the high soul burns on to light men's 

feet 
Where death for noble ends makes dying 

sweet ; 
His life her crescent's span 
Orbs full with share in their undarken- 

ing days 
Who ever climbed the battailous steeps 

of praise 
Since valor's praise began. 

in. 

His life's expense 
Hath won for him coeval youth 
With the immaculate prime of Truth ; 
While we, who make pretence 
At living on, and wake and eat and 

sleep, 
And life's stale trick by repetition keep, 

Our fickle permanence 
(A poor leaf- shadow on a brook, whose 

play 
Of busy idlesse ceases with our day) 
Is the mere cheat of sense. 

We bide our chance, 
Unhappy, and make terms with Fate 
A little more to let us wait ; 
He leads for aye the advance, 
Hope's forlorn-hopes that plant the 

desperate good 
For nobler Earths and days of manlier 
mood ; 
Our wall of circumstance 
Cleared at a bound, he flashes o'er the 

fight, 
A saintly shape of fame, to cheer the 
right 
And steel each wavering glance. 

I write of one, 
While with dim eyes I think of three ; 
Who weeps not others fair and brave 
as he ? 
Ah, when the fight is won, 
Dear Land, whom trirlers now make bold 

to scorn, 
(Thee ! from whose forehead Earth awaits 
her morn,) 
How nobler shall the sun 
Flame in thy sky, how braver breathe 

thy air, 
That thou bred'st children who for thee 
could dare 
And die as thine have done ! 

1863. 



ON BOARD THE '76, 
ON BOARD THE 76. 



383 



WRITTEN FOR MR. BRYANT S SEVEN- 
TIETH BIRTHDAY. 

November 3, 1864. 

Our ship lay- tumbling in an angry sea, 
Her rudder gone, her mainmast o'er 
the side ; 
Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch 
staggering free . 
Trailed threads of priceless crimson 
through the tide ; 
Sails, shrouds, and spars with pirate 
cannon torn, 
We lay, awaiting morn. 

Awaiting morn, such morn as mocks 
despair ; 
And she that bare the promise of the 
world 
Within her sides, now hopeless, helm- 
less, bare, 
At random o'er the wildering waters 
hurled ; 
The reek of battle drifting slow alee 
Not sullener than we. 

Morn came at last to peer into our woe, 
When lo, a sail ! Now surely help 
was nigh ; 
The red cross flames aloft, Christ's 
pledge ; but no, 
Her black guns grinning hate, she 
rushes by 
And hails us : — " Gains the leak ! Ay, 
so we thought ! 
Sink, then, with curses fraught ! " 

I leaned against my gun still angry -hot, 
And my lids tingled with the tears 
held back ; 
This scorn methought was crueller than 
shot : 
The manly death-grip in the battle- 
wrack, 
Yard-arm to yard-arm, were more friendly 
far 
Than such fear-smothered war. 

There our foe wallowed, like a wounded 

brute 
The fiercer for his hurt. What now 

were best ? 
Once more tug bravely at the peril's 

root, 



Though death came with it ? Or 
evade the test 
If right or wrong in this God's world of 
ours 
Be leagued with higher powers ? 

Some, faintly loyal, felt their pulses lag 
With the slow beat that doubts and 
then despairs ; 
Some, caitiff, would have struck the 
starry flag 
That knits us with our past, and 
makes us heirs 
Of deeds high-hearted as were ever done 
'Neath the all-seeing sun. 

But there was one, the Singer of our 
crew, 
Upon whose head Age waved his 
peaceful sign, 
But whose red heart's-blood no surren- 
der knew; 
And couchant under brows of massive 
line, 
The eyes, like guns beneath a parapet, 
Watched, charged with lightnings 

yet. 

The voices of the hills did his obey ; 
The torrents flashed and tumbled in 
his song ; 
He brought our native fields from far 
away, 
Or set us mid the innumerable throng 
Of dateless woods, or where we heard the 
calm 
Old homestead's evening psalm. 

But now he sang of faith to things 
unseen, 
Of freedom's birthright given to us in 
trust ; 
And w r ords of doughty cheer he spoke 
between, 
That made all earthly fortune seem as 
dust, 
Matched with that duty, old as Time 
and new, 
Of being brave and true. 

We, listening, learned what makes the 

might of words, — 
Manhood to back them, constant as 

a star ; 
His voice rammed home our cannon, 

edged our swords, 



384 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 



And sent our boarders 'shouting ; 
shroud and spar 
Heard him and stiffened ; the sails heard, 
and wooed 
The winds with loftier mood. 

In our dark hours he manned our guns 
again ; 
Remanned ourselves from his own 
manhood's stores ; 
Pride, honor, country, throbbed through 
. all his strain ; 
And shall we praise ? God's praise 
was his before ; 
And on our futile laurels he looks down, 
Himself our bravest crown. 



ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD 
COMMEMORATION. 

July 21, 1865. 



Weak-winged is song, 

Nor aims at that clear-ethered height 

Whither the brave deed climbs for light : 

We seem to do them wrong, 
Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their 

hearse 
Who in warm life-blood wrote their 

nobler verse, 
Our trivial song to honor those who 

come 
With ears attuned to strenuous trump 

and drum, 
And shaped in squadron- strophes their 

desire, 
Live battle-odes whose lines were steel 

and fire : 
Yet sometimes feathered words are 

strong, 
A gracious memory to buoy up and save 
From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the com- 
mon grave 
Of the unventurous throng. 

II. 

To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes 
back 
Her wisest Scholars, those who under- 
, stood 
The deeper teaching of her mystic tome, 
And offered their fresh lives to make 
it good ; 



No lore of Greece or Rome, 
No science peddling with the names of 

things, 
Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, 

Can lift our life with wings 
Far from Death's idle gulf that for the 
many waits, 
And lengthen out our dates 
With that clear fame whose memory sings 
In manly hearts to come, and nerves 

them and dilates : 
Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all ! 
Not such the trumpet-call 
Of thy diviner mood, 
That could thy sons entice 
From happy homes and toils, the fruit- 
ful nest 
Of those half-virtues which the world 
calls best, 
Into War's tumult rude ; 
But rather far that stern device 
The sponsors chose that round thy cradle 
stood 
In the dim, unventured wood, 
The Veritas that lurks beneath 
The letter's unprolific sheath, 
Life of whate'er makes life worth 
living, 
Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal 
food, 
One heavenly thing whereof earth hath 
the giving. 

in. 

Many loved Truth, and lavished life's 
best oil 
Amid the dust of books to find her, 
Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, 
With the cast mantle she hath left 
behind her. 
Many in sad faith sought for her, 
Many with crossed hands sighed for 

her ; 
But these, our brothers, fought for 

her 
At life 's dear peril wrought for her, 
So loved her that they died for her, 
Tasting the raptured fleetness 
Of her divine completeness : 
Their higher instinct knew 
Those love her best who to themselves 

are true, 
And what they dare to dream of, dare to 
do; 
They followed her and found her 
Where all may hope to find, 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 



385 



Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, 
But beautiful, with danger's sweetness 
round her. 
Where faith made whole with deed 
Breathes its awakening breath 
Into the lifeless creed, 
They saw her plumed and mailed, 
With sweet, stern face unveiled, 
And all-repaying eyes, look proud on 
them in death. 



IV. 

Our slender life runs rippling by, and 
glides 
Into the silent hollow of the past ; 

What is there that abides 
To make the next age better for the 
last? 
Is earth too poor to give us 
Something to live for here that shall 
outlive us ? 
Some more substantial boon 
£han such as flows and ebbs with For- 
tune's fickle moon ? 
The little that we see 
From doubt is never free ; 
The little that we do 
Is but half-nobly true ; 
With our laborious hiving 
What men call treasure, and the gods 
call dross, 
Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving, 
Only secure in every one's conniving, 
A long account of nothings paid with 

loss, 
Where we poor puppets, jerked by un- 
seen wires, 
After our little hour of strut and rave, 
With all our pasteboard passions and 

desires, 
Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal 
fires, 
Are tossed pell-mell together in the 

grave. 
But stay ! no age was e'er degenerate, 
Unless men held it at too cheap a rate, 
For in our likeness still we shape our 
fate. 
Ah, there is something here 
Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer, 
Something that gives our feeble light 
A high immunity from Night, 
Something that leaps life's narrow bars 
To claim its birthright with the hosts of 
heaven ; 
A seed of sunshine that doth leaven 






25 



Our earthly dulness with the beams of 
stars, 
And glorify our clay 
With light from fountains elder than 
the Day; 
A conscience more divine than we, 
A gladness fed with secret tears, 
A vexing, forward-reaching sense 
Of some more noble permanence ; 
A light across the sea, 
Which haunts the soul and will not 
let it be, 
Still glimmering from the heights of un- 
degenerate years. 



Whither leads the path 
To ampler fates that leads ? 
Not down through flowery 

meads, 
To reap an aftermath 
Of youth's vainglorious weeds, 
But up the steep, amid the wrath 
And shock of deadly-hostile creeds, 
Where the world's best hope and 
stay 
By battle's flashes gropes a desperate 

way, 
And every turf the fierce foot clings to 
bleeds. 
Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, 
Ere yet the sharp, decisive word 
Light the black lips of cannon, and the 
sword 
Dreams in its easeful sheath ; 
But some day the live coal behind the 
thought, 
Whether from Baal's stone ob- 
scene, 
Or from the shrine serene 
Of God's pure altar brought, 
Bursts up in flame ; the war of tongue 

and pen 
Learns with what deadly purpose it was 

fraught, 
And, helpless in the fiery passion caught, 
Shakes all the pillared state with shock 

of men : 
Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed 
Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, 
And cries reproachful : ' ' Was it, then, 

my praise, 
And not myself was loved ? Prove now 

thy truth ; 
I claim of thee the promise of thy youth ; 



386 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 



Give me thy life, or cower in empty 

phrase, 
The victim of thy genius, not its 
• mate!" 
Life may be given in many ways, 
And loyalty to Truth be sealed 
As bravely in the closet as the field, 
So bountiful is Fate ; 
But then to stand beside her, 
When craven churls deride her, 
To front a lie in arms and not to 
yield, 
This shows, methinks, God's plan 
And measure of a stalwart man, 
Limbed like the old heroic breeds, 
Who stands self-poised on man- 
hood's solid earth, 
Not forced to frame excuses for his 
birth, 
Fed from within with all the strength he 
needs. 



VI. 

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 

Whom late the Nation he had led, 
With ashes on her head, 
Wept with the passion of an angry grief: 
Forgive me, if from present things I 

turn 
To speak what in my heart will beat and 

burn, 
And hang my wreath on his world-hon- 
ored urn. 
Nature, they say, doth dote, 
And cannot make a man 
Save on some worn-out plan, 
Repeating us by rote : 
For him her Old- World moulds aside she 
threw, 
And, choosing sweet clay from the 
breast 
Of the unexhausted West, 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, 
and true. 
How beautiful to see 
Once more a shepherd of mankind in- 
deed, 
Who loved his charge, but never loved 

to lead ; 
One whose meek flock the people joyed 
to be, 
Not lured by any cheat of birth, 
But by his clear-grained human 
worth, 
And brave old wisdom of sincerity ! 



They knew that outward grace is 

dust ; 
They could not choose but trust 
In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering 
skill, 
And supple-tempered will 
That bent like perfect steel to spring 
again and thrust. 
His was no lonely mountain-peak 

of mind, 
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy 

bars, 
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors 

blind ; 
Broad prairie rather, genial, level- 
lined, 
Fruitful and friendly for all human 
kind, 
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of 
loftiest stars. 
Nothing of Europe here, 
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward 
still, 
Ere any names of Serf and Peer 
Could Nature's equal scheme de- 
face 
And thwart her genial will ; 
Here was a type of the true elder 
race, 
And one of Plutarch's men talked with 
us face to face. m 

I praise him not ; it were too late ; 
And some innative weakness there must 

be 
In him who condescends to victory 
Such as the Present gives, and cannot 
wait, 
Safe in himself as in a fate. 
So always firmly he : 
He knew to bide his time, 
And can his fame abide, 
Still patient in his simple faith sub- 
lime, 
Till the wise years decide. 
Great captains, with their guns and 
drums, 
Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
But at last silence comes ; 
These all are gone, and, standing like 

a tower, 
Our children shall behold his fame, 
The kindly-earnest, brave, foresee- 
ing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not 
blame, 
New birth of our new soil, the first 
American. 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 



387 



Long as man's hope insatiate can 

discern 
Or only guess some more inspiring 

goal 
Outside of Self, enduring as the 

pole, 
Along whose course the flying axles 

burn 
Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's 

manlier brood ; 
Long as below we cannot find 
The meed that stills the inexorable 

mind ; 
So long this faith to some ideal Good, 
Under whatever mortal names it 

masks, 
Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal 

mood 
That thanks the Fates for their severer 

tasks, 
Feeling its challenged pulses leap, 
"While others skulk in subterfuges 

cheap, 
And, set in Danger's van, has all the 

boon it asks, 
Shall win man's praise and woman's 

love, 
Shall be a wisdom that we set above 
All other skills and gifts to culture dear, 
A virtue round whose forehead we in- 

wreattie 
Laurels that with a living passion 

breathe 
When other crowns grow, while we twine 

them, sear. 
What brings us thronging these high 

rites to pay, 
And seal these hours the noblest of our 

year, 
Save that our brothers found this bet- 
ter way ? 

VIII. 

We sit here in the Promised Land 
That flows with Freedom's honey and 

milk ; 
But 't was they won it, sword in hand, 
Making the nettle danger soft for us as 

silk. 
We welcome back our bravest and our 

best ; — 
Ah me ! not all ! some come not with 

the rest, 
Who went forth brave and bright as any 

here ! 



I strive to mix some gladness with my 
strain, 
But the sad strings complain, 
And will not please the ear : 
I sweep them for a psean, but they wane 

Again and yet again 
Into a dirge, and die away, in pain. 
In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, 
Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb 

turf wraps, 
Dark to the triumph which they died to 
gain : 
Fitlier may others greet the living, 
For me the past is unforgiving ; 
I with uncovered head 
Salute the sacred dead, 
Who went, and who return not. — Say 

not so ! 
'T is not the grapes of Canaan that repay, 
But the high faith that failed not by 

the way ; 
Virtue treads paths that end not in the 

grave ; 
ISTo bar of endless night exiles the brave ; 

And to the saner mind 
We rather seem the dead that stayed 

behind. 
Blow, trumpets, all your exultations 

blow ! 
For never shall their aureoled presence 

lack : 
I see them muster in a gleaming row, 
With ever-youthful brows that nobler 

show ; 
We find in our dull road their shining 
track ; 
In every nobler mood 
We feel the orient of their spirit glow, 
Part of our life's unalterable good, 
Of all our saintlier aspiration ; 

They come transfigured back, 
Secure from change in their high-hearted 

ways, 
Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 
Of morn on their white Shields of Ex- 
pectation ! 



But is there hope to save 
Even this ethereal essence from the 

grave ? 
What ever 'scaped Oblivion's subtle 
wrong 
Save a few clarion names, or golden 
threads of song? 
Before my musing eye 



388 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 



The mighty ones of old sweep by, 
Disvoiced now and insubstantial 

things, 
As noisy once as we ; poor ghosts of 

kings, 
Shadows of empire wholly gone to 

dust, 
And many races, nameless long ago, 
To darkness driven by that imperious 

gust 
Of ever-rushing Time that here doth 

blow : 
O visionary world, condition strange, 
Where naught abiding is but only 

Change, 
Where the deep-bolted stars themselves 

still shift and range ! 
Shall we to more continuance make 

pretence ? 
Renown builds tombs ; a life -estate is 

Wit; 
And, bit by bit, 
The cunning years steal all from us but 

woe ; 
Leaves are we, whose decays no har- 
vest sow. 
But, when we vanish hence, 
Shall they lie forceless in the dark 

below, 
Save to make green their little length 

of sods, 
Or deepen pansies for a year or two, 
Who now to us are shining-sweet as 

gods ? 
Was dying all they had the skill to do ? 
That were not fruitless : but the Soul 

resents 
Such short-lived service, as if blind 

events 
Ruled without her, or earth could so 

endure ; 
She claims a more divine investiture 
Of longer tenure than Fame's airy 

rents ; 
Whate'er she touches doth her nature 

share ; 
Her inspiration haunts the ennobled 

air, 
Gives eyes to mountains blind, 
Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the 

wind, 
And her clear trump sings succor 

everywhere 
By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful 

mind ; 
For soul inherits all that soul could 

dare : 



Yea, Manhood hath a wider span 
And larger privilege of life than man. 
The single deed, the private sacrifice, 
So radiant now through proudly-hid- 
den tears, 
Is covered up erelong from mortal eyes 
With thoughtless drift of the decidu- 
ous years ; 
But that high privilege that makes all 

men peers, 
That leap of heart whereby a people 
rise 
Up to a noble anger's height, 
And, flamed on by the Fates, not shrink, 
but grow more bright, 
That swift validity in noble veins, 
Of choosing danger and disdaining 
shame, 
Of being set on flame 
By the pure fire that flies all contact 
base, 
But wraps its chosen with angelic might, 
These are imperishable gains, 
Sure as the sun, medicinal as light, 
These hold great futures in their lusty 
reins 
And certify to earth a new imperial race. 

x. 

Who now shall sneer ? 
Who dare again to saj we trace 
Our lines to a plebeian race ? 
Roundhead and Cavalier ! 
Dumb are those names erewhile in battle 

loud ; 
Dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud, 

They flit across the ear : 
That is best blood that hath most iron 

in't. 
To edge resolve with, pouring without 
stint 
For what makes manhood dear. 
Tell us not of Plantagenets, 
Hapsburgs, andGuelfs, whose thin bloods 

crawl 
Down from some victor in a border- 
brawl ! 
How poor their outworn coronets, 
Matched with one leaf of that plain civic 

wreath 
Our brave for honor's blazon shall be- 
queath, 
Through whose desert a rescued Nation 
sets 
Her heel on treason, and the trumpet 
hears 



COMMEMORATION ODE. 



389 



Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen 
ears 
With vain resentments and more vain 
regrets I 

XI. 

Not in anger, not in pride, 
Pure from passion's mixture rude 
Ever to base earth allied, 
But with far-heard gratitude, 
Still with heart and voice renewed, 
To heroes living and dear martyrs 
dead, 
The strain should close that consecrates 
our brave. 
Lift the heart and lift the head ! 
Lofty be its mood and grave, 
Not without a martial ring, 
Not without a prouder tread 
And a peal of exultation : 
Little right has he to sing 
Through whose heart in such an 

hour 
Beats no march of conscious 

pow T er, 
Sweeps no tumult of elation ! 
'T is no Man we celebrate, 
By his country's victories great, 
A hero half, and half the w T him of 
Fate, 
But the pith and marrow of a 

Nation 
Drawing force from all her men, 
Highest, humblest, weakest, all, 
For her time of need, and then 
Pulsing it again through them, 
Till the basest can no longer cower, 
Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, 
Touched but in passing by her mantle- 
hem. 
Come back, then, noble pride, for 't is 
her dower ! 
How could poet ever tower, 
If his passions, hopes, and fears, 
If his triumphs and his tears, 
Kept not measure with his peo- 
ple ? 
Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds 

and waves ! 
Clash out, glad bells, from every rock- 
ing steeple ! 
Banners, adance with triumph, bend 
your staves ! 
And from every mountain -peak 
Let beacon-fire to answering beacon 
speak, 



Katahdin tell Monadnock, White- 
face he, 
And so leap on in light from sea to sea, 
Till the glad news be sent 
Across a kindling continent, 
Making earth feel more firm and air 

breathe braver : 
" Be proud ! for she is saved, and all 

have helped to save her ! 
She that lifts up the manhood of 

the poor, 
She of the open soul and open door, 
With room about her hearth for all 

mankind ! 
The lire is dreadful in her eyes no 

more; 
From her bold front the helm she 

doth unbind, 
Sends all her handmaid armies back 

to spin, 
And bids her navies, that so lately 

hurled 
Their crashing battle, hold their 

thunders in, 
Swimming like birds of calm along 

the unharmful shore. 
No challenge sends she to the elder 

world, 
That looked askance and hated ; a 

light scorn 
Plays o'er her mouth, as round her 

mighty knees 
She calls her children back, and 

waits the morn 
Of nobler day, enthroned between her 

subject seas." 



Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast 
found release ! 
Thy God, in these distempered days, 
Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of 
His ways, 
And through thine enemies hath wrought 
thy peace ! 
Bow down in prayer and praise ! 
No poorest in thy borders but may now 
Lift to the juster skies a man's enfran- 
chised brow, 
Beautiful ! my Country ! ours once 

more ! 
Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled 

hair 
O'er such sweet brows as never other 
wore, 
And letting thy set lips, 



390 



L ENVOI. 



Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, 
The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, 
What words divine of lover or of poet 
Could tell our love and make thee know 

it, 

Among the Nations bright beyond com- 
pare? 



But 



What were our lives without 

thee? 

"What all our lives to save thee ? 

We reck not what we gave thee ; 

We will not dare to doubt thee, 

ask whatever else, and we will 

dare! 



L'ENVOL 

TO THE MUSE. 



Whither ? Albeit I follow fast, 

In all life's circuit I but find, 
Not where thou art, but where thou 
wast, 

Sweet beckoner, more fleet than wind ! 
I haunt the pine-dark solitudes, 

With soft brown silence carpeted, 
And plot to snare thee in the woods : 

Peace I o'ertake, but thou art fled ! 
I find the rock where thou didst rest, 
The moss thy skimming foot hath prest ; 

All Nature with thy parting thrills, 
Like branches after birds new-flown ; 

Thy passage hill and hollow fills 
With hints of virtue not their own ; 
In dimples still the water slips 
Where thou hast dipt thy finger-tips ; 

Just, just beyond, forever burn 

Gleams of grace without return ; 

Upon thy shade I plant my foot, 
And through my frame strange raptures 

shoot ; 
All of thee but thyself I grasp ; 

I seem to fold thy luring shape, 
And vague air to my bosom clasp, 

Thou lithe, perpetual Escape ! 

One mask and then another drops, 
And thou art secret as before : 
Sometimes with flooded ear I list, 
And hear thee, wondrous organist, 
From mighty continental stops 
A thunder of new music pour ; 
Through pipes of earth and air and stone 
Thy inspiration deep is blown ; 
Through mountains, forests, open downs, 
Lakes, railroads, prairies, states, and 
towns, 



Thy gathering fugue goes rolling on 
From Maine to utmost Oregon ; 
The factory-wheels in cadence hum, 
From brawling parties concords come ; 
All this I hear, or seem to hear, 
But when, enchanted, I draw near 
To mate with words the various theme, 
Life seems a whiff of kitchen steam, 
History an organ-grinder's thrum, 

For thou hast slipt from it and me 
And all thine organ-pipes left dumb, 

Most mutable Perversity ! 

Not weary yet, I still must seek, 
And hope for luck next day, next week ; 
I go to see the great man ride, 
Shiplike, the swelling human tide 
That floods to bear him into port, 
Trophied from Senate-hall and Court ; 
Thy magnetism, I feel it there, 
Thy rhythmic presence fleet and rare, 
Making the Mob a moment fine 
With glimpses of their own Divine, 
As in their demigod they see 

Their cramped ideal soaring free ; 
'T was thou didst bear the fire about, 

That, like the springing of a mine 
Sent up to heaven the street-long shout ; 
Full well I know that thou wast here, 
It was thy breath that brushed my ear; 
But vainly in the stress and whirl 
I dive for thee, the moment's pearl. 

Through every shape thou well canst 

run, 
Proteus, 'twixt rise and set of sun, 
Well pleased with logger-camps in 

Maine _____ 



TO THE MUSE. 



391 



As where Milan's pale Duomo lies 
A stranded glacier on the plain, 
Its peaks and pinnacles of ice 
Melted in many a quaint device, 
And sees, above the city's din, 
Afar its silent Alpine kin : 
I track thee over carpets deep 
To wealth's and beauty's inmost keep ; 
Across the sand of bar-room floors 
Mid the stale reek of boosing boors ; 
Where drowse the hay-field's fragrant 

heats, 
Or the flail-heart of Autumn beats ; 
I dog thee through the market's throngs 
To where the sea with myriad tongues 
Laps the green edges of the pier, 
And the tall ships that eastward steer, 
Curtsy their farewells to the town, 
O'er the curved distance lessening down ; 
I follow allwhere for thy sake. 
Touch thy robe's hem, but ne'er o'ertake, 
Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies, 
Warm from thy limbs, thy last disguise ; 
But thou another shape hast donned, 
And lurest still just, just beyond ! 

But here a voice, I know not whence, 
Thrills clearly through my inward sense, 
Saying : " See where she sits at home 
While thou in search of her dost roam ! 
All summer long her ancient wheel 

Whirls humming by the open door, 
Or, when the hickory's social zeal 

Sets the wide chimney in a roar, 
Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth, 
It modulates the household mirth 
With that sweet serious undertone 
Of duty, music all her own ; 
Still as of old she sits and spins 
Our hopes, our sorrows, and our sins; 
With equal care she twines the fates 
Of cottages and mighty states ; 
She spins the earth, the air, the sea, 
The maiden's unschooled fancy free, 



The boy's first love, the man's first grief, 
The budding and the fall o' the leaf ; 
The piping west-wind's snowy care 
For her their cloudy fleeces spare, 
Or from the thorns of evil times 
She can glean wool to twist her rhymes ; 
Morning and noon and eve supply 
To her their fairest tints for dye, 
But ever through her twirling thread 
There spires one line of warmest red, 
Tinged from the homestead's genial 

heart, 
The stamp and warrant of her art ; 
With this Time's sickle she outwears, 
And blunts the Sisters' baffled shears. 

" Harass her not : thy heat and stir 
But greater coyness breed in her ; 
Yet thou mayst find, ere Age's frost, 
Thy long apprenticeship not lost, 
Learning at last that Stygian Fate 
Unbends to him that knows to wait. 
The Muse is womanish, nor deigns . - 
Her love to him that pules and plains ; 
With proud, averted face she stands 
To him that wooes with empty hands. 
Make thyself free of Manhood's guild ; 
Pull down thy barns and greater build ; 
The wood, the mountain, and the plain 
Wave breast-deep with the poet's grain ; 
Pluck thou the sunset's fruit of gold, 
Glean from the heavens and ocean old ; 
From fireside lone and trampling street 
Let thy life garner daily wheat ; 
The epic of a man rehearse, 
Be something better than thy verse ; 
Make thyself rich, and then the Muse 
Shall court thy precious interviews, 
Shall take thy head upon her knee, 
And such enchantment lilt to thee, 
That thou shalt hear the life-blood flow 
From farthest stars to grass- blades low, 
And find the Listener's science still 
Transcends the Singer's deepest skill ! " 



To 

MR. JAMES T. FIELDS. 

My dear Fields : 

Dr. Johnson's sturdy self- respect led him to invent the Bookseller as a 
substitute for the Patron. My relations with you have enabled me to dis- 
cover how pleasantly the Friend may replace the Bookseller. Let me 
record my sense of many thoughtful services by associating your name 
with a poem which owes its appearance in this form to your partiality. 

Cordially yours, 

J. R. LOWELL. 

Cambridge, November 29, 1869. 




THE CATHEDRAL. 



Far through the memory shines a happy 

day, 
Cloudless of care, down-shod to every 

sense, 
And simply perfect from its own resource, 
As to a bee the new campanula's 
Illuminate seclusion swung in air. 
Such days are not the prey of setting 

suns, 
Nor ever blurred with mist of after- 
thought ; 
Like words made magical by poets dead, 
"Wherein the music of all meaning is 
The sense hath garnered or the soul di- 
vined, 
They mingle with our life's ethereal part, 
Sweetening and gathering sweetness ever- 
more, 
By beauty's franchise disenthralled of 
time. 

I can recall, nay, they are present still, 
Parts of myself, the perfume of my mind, 
Days that seem farther off than Homer's 

now 
Ere yet the child had loudened to the boy, 
And I, recluse from playmates, found 

perforce 
Companionship in things that not denied 
Nor granted wholly ; as is Nature's 

wont, 
Who, safe in uncontaminate reserve, 
Lets us mistake our longing for her love, 
And mocks with various echo of our- 
selves. 

These first sweet frauds upon our con- 
sciousness, 

That blend the sensual with its imaged 
world, 

These virginal cognitions, gifts of morn, 

Ere life grow noisy, and slower-footed 
thought 



Can overtake the rapture of the sense, 
To thrust between ourselves and what 

we feel, 
Have something in them secretly divine. 
Vainly the eye, once schooled to serve 

the brain, 
With pains deliberate studies to renew 
The ideal vision : second-thoughts are 

prose ; 
For beauty's acme hath a term as brief 
As the wave's poise before it break in 

pearl. 
Our own breath dims the mirror of the 

sense, 
Looking too long and closely : at a flash 
We snatch the essential grace of mean- 
ing out, 
And that first passion beggars all be- 
hind, 
Heirs of a tamer transport prepossessed. 
Who, seeing once, has truly seen again 
The gray vague of unsympathizing sea 
That dragged his Fancy from her moor- 
ings back 
To shores inhospitable of eldest time, 
Till blank foreboding of earth-gendered 

powers, 
Pitiless seignories in the elements, 
Omnipotences blind that darkling smite, 
Misgave him, and repaganized the 

world ? 
Yet, by some subtler touch of sympathy, 
These primal apprehensions, dimly 

stirred, 
Perplex the eye with pictures from with- 
in. 
This hath made poets dream of lives fore- 
gone 
In worlds fantastical, more fair than ours ; 
So Memory cheats us, glimpsing half- 
revealed. 
Even as I write she tries her wonted 
spell 



394 



THE CATHEDRAL. 



In that continuous redbreast boding 
rain : 

The bird I hear sings not from yonder 
elm ; 

But the flown ecstasy my childhood 
heard 

Is vocal in my mind, renewed by him, 

Haply made sweeter by the accumulate 
thrill 

That threads my undivided life and 
steals 

A pathos from the years and graves be- 
tween. 

I know not how it is with other men, 

Whom I but guess, deciphering myself; 

For me, once felt is so felt nevermore. 

The fleeting relish at sensation's brim 

Had in it the best ferment of the wine. 

One spring I knew as never any since : 

All night the surges of the warm south- 
west 

Boomed intermittent through the shud- 
dering elms, 

And brought a morning from the Gulf 
adrift, 

Omnipotent with sunshine, whose quick 
charm 

Startled with crocuses the sullen turf 

And wiled the bluebird to his whiff of 
song : 

One summer hour abides, what time I 
perched, 

Dappled with noonday, under simmer- 
ing leaves, 

And pulled the pulpy oxhearts, while 
aloof 

An oriole clattered and the robins 
shrilled, 

Denouncing me an alien and a thief : 

One morn of autumn lords it o'er the 
rest, 

When in the lane I watched the ash- 
leaves fall, 

Balancing softly earthward without 
wind, 

Or twirling with directer impulse down 

On those fallen yesterday, now barbed 
with frost, 

While 1 grew pensive with the pensive 
year : 

And once I learned how marvellous 
winter was, 

When past the fence-rails, downy-gray 
with rime, 

I creaked adventurous o'er the spangled 
crust 



That made familiar fields seem far and 

strange 
As those stark wastes that whiten en i- 

lessly 
In ghastly solitude about the pole, 
And gleam relentless to the unsetting 

sun : 
Instant the candid chambers of my brain 
Were painted with these sovran images ; 
And later visions seem but copies pale 
From those unfading frescos of the past, 
Which I, young savage, in my age of 

flint, 
Gazed at, and dimly felt a power in me 
Parted from Nature by the joy in her 
That doubtfully revealed me to myself. 
Thenceforward I must stand outside the 

gate ; ^ 
And paradise was paradise the more, 
Known once and barred against satiety. 

What we call Nature, all outside our- 
selves, 
Is but our own conceit of what we see, 
Our own reaction upon what we feel ; 
The world 's a woman to our shifting 

mood, 
Feeling with us, or making due pretence ; 
And therefore we the more persuade our- 
selves 
To make all things our thought's con- 
federates, 
Conniving with us in whate'er we dream. 
So when our Fancy seeks analogies, 
Though she have hidden what she after 

finds, 
She loves to cheat herself with feigned 

surprise. 
I find my own complexion everywhere : 
No rose, I doubt, was ever, like the 

first, 
A marvel to the bush it dawned upon, 
The rapture of its life made visible, 
The mystery of its yearning realized, 
As the first babe to the first woman 

born ; 
No falcon ever felt delight of wings 
As when, an eyas, from the stolid cliff 
Loosing himself, he followed his high 

heart 
To swim on sunshine, masterless as 

wind ; 
And I believe the brown earth takes 

delight 
In the new snowdrop looking back at 

her, 
To think that by some vernal alchemy 



THE CATHEDRAL. 



395 



It could transmute her darkness into 

pearl ; « 

What is the buxom peony after that, 
With its coarse constancy of hoyden 

blush ? 
What the full summer to that wonder 

new ? 

But, if in nothing else, in us there is 
A sense fastidious hardly reconciled 
To the poor makeshifts of life's scenery, 
Where the same slide must double all its 

parts, 
Shoved in for Tarsus and hitched back 

for Tyre. 
I blame not in the soul this daintiness, 
Rasher of surfeit than a humming-bird, 
In things indifferent by sense purveyed ; 
It argues her an immortality 
And dateless incomes of experience, 
This unthrift housekeeping that will not 

brook 
A dish warmed-over at the feast of life, 
And finds Twice stale, served with what- 
ever sauce. 
Nor matters much how it may go with 

me 
Who dwell in Grub Street and am proud 

to drudge 
Where men, my betters, wet their crust 

with tears : 
Use can make sweet the peach's shady 

side, 
That only by reflection tastes of sun. 

But she, my Princess, who will some- 
times deign 

My garret to illumine till the walls, 

Narrow and dingy, scrawled with hack- 
neyed thought 

(Poor Richard slowly elbowing Plato 
out), 

Dilate and drape themselves with tapes- 
tries 

Nausikaa might have stooped o'er, while, 
between, 

Mirrors, effaced in their own clearness, 
send 

Her only image on through deepening 
deeps 

With endless repercussion of delight, — 

Bringer of life, witching each sense to" 
soul, 

That sometimes almost gives me to 
believe 

I might have been a poet, gives at least 

A brain desaxonized, an ear that makes 



Music where none is, and a keener pang 
Of exquisite surmise outleaping 

thought, — 
Her will I pamper in her luxury : 
No crumpled rose-leaf of too careless 

choice 
Shall bring a northern nightmare to her 

dreams, 
Vexing with sense of exile ; hers shall 

be 
The in vitiate firstlings of experience, 
Vibrations felt but once and felt life- 
long : 
0, more than half-way turn that Grecian 

front 
Upon me, while with self-rebuke I spell, 
On the plain fillet that confines thy hair 
In conscious bounds of seeming uncon- 

straint, 
The Naught in overplus, thy race's 

badge ! 

One feast for her I secretly designed 
In that Old World so strangely beautiful 
To us the disinherited of eld, — 
A day at Chartres, with no soul beside 
To roil with pedant prate my joy serene 
And make the minster shy of confidence. 
I went, and, with the Saxon's pious care, 
First ordered dinner at the pea-green 

inn, 
The flies and I its only customers, 
Till by and by there came two English- 
men, 
Who made me feel, in their engaging 

way, 
I was a poacher on their self-preserve, 
Intent constructively on lese-anglicism. 
To them (in those old razor-ridden days) 
My beard translated me to hostile 

French ; 
So they, desiring guidance in the town, 
Half condescended to my baser sphere, 
And, clubbing in one mess their lack of 

phrase, 
Set their best man to grapple with the 

Gaul. 
" Esker vous ate a nabitang?" he asked ; 
" I never ate one ; are they good ?" asked 

Whereat they stared, then laughed, and 
we were friends, 

The seas, the wars, the centuries inter- 
posed, 

Abolished in the truce of common speech 

And mutual comfort of the mother- 
tongue. 



396 



THE CATHEDRAL. 



Like escaped convicts of Propriety, 
They furtively partook the joys of men, 
Glancing behind when buzzed some 
louder fly. 

Eluding these, I loitered through the 
town, 

With hope to take my minster unawares 

In its grave solitude of memory. 

A pretty burgh, and such as Fancy loves 

For bygone grandeurs, faintly rumorous 
now 

Upon the mind's horizon, as of storm 

Brooding its dreamy thunders far aloof, 

That mingle with our mood, but not 
disturb. 

Its once grim bulwarks, tamed to lovers' 
walks, 

Look down unwatchful on the sliding 
Eure, 

Whose listless leisure suits the quiet 
place, 

Lisping among his shallows homelike 
sounds 

At Concord and by Bankside heard be- 
fore. 

Chance led me to a public pleasure- 
ground, 

Where I grew kindly with the merry 
groups, 

And blessed the Frenchman for his sim- 
ple art 

Of being domestic in the light of day. 

His language has no word, we growl, for 
Home ; 

But he can find a fireside in the sun, 

Play with his child, make love, and 
shriek his mind, 

By throngs of strangers undisprivacied. 

He makes his life a public gallery, 

!N or feels himself till what he feels comes 
back 

In manifold reflection from without ; 

While we, each pore alert with con- 
sciousness, 

Hide our best selves as we had stolen 
them, 

And each bystander a detective were, 

Keen-eyed for every chink of undisguise. 

So, musing o'er the problem which was 

best, — 
A life wide-windowed, shining all abroad, 
Or curtains drawn to shield from sight 

profane 
The rites we pay to the mysterious I, — 



With outward senses furloughed aivl 

head bowed 
I followed some fine instinct in my feetf 
Till, to unbend me from the loom of 

thought, 
Looking up suddenly, I found mine eyes 
Confronted with the minster's vast re- 
pose. 
Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff 
Left inland by the ocean's slow retreat, 
That hears afar the breeze-borne rote 

and longs, 
Remembering shocks of surf that cl>;:rtb 

and fell, 
Spume-sliding down the baffled decuman, 
It rose before me, patiently remote 
From the great tides of life it breasted 

once, 
Hearing the noise of men as in a dream. 
I stood before the triple northern port, 
Where dedicated shapes of saints and 

kings, 
Stern faces bleared with immemorial 

watch, 
Looked down benignly grave and seemed 

to say, 
Ye come and go incessant ; we remain 
Safe in the halloived quiets of the past ; 
Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, 
Of faith so nobly realized as this. 
I seem to have heard it said by learned 

folk 
Who drench you with aesthetics till you 

feel 
As if all beauty were a ghastly bore, 
The faucet to let loose a wash of words, 
That Gothic is not Grecian, therefore 

worse ; 
But, being convinced by much experi- 
ment 
How little inventiveness there is in man, 
Grave copier of copies, I give thanks 
For a new relish, careless to inquire 
My pleasure's pedigree, if so it please, 
Nobly, I mean, nor renegade to art. 
The Grecian gluts me with its perfect- 

ness, 
Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained, 
The one thing finished in this hasty 

world, 
Forever finished, though the barbarous 

pit, 
Fanatical on hearsay, stan and shout 
As if a miracle could be encored. 
But ah ! this other, this that never ends, 
Still climbing, luring fancy still to climb, 
As full of morals half-divined as life, 



THE CATHEDRAL. 



397 



Graceful, grotesque, with ever new sur- 
prise 
Of hazardous caprices sure to please, 
Heavy as nightmare, airy-light as fern, 
Imagination's very self in stone ! 
With one long sigh of infinite release 
From pedantries past, present, or to 

come, 
I looked, and owned myself a happy 

Goth. 
Your blood is mine, ye architects of 

dream, 
Br-ilers of aspiration incomplete, 
So more consummate, souls self-confi- 
dent, 
Wh t felt your own thought worthy of 

record 
In monumental pomp ! ISTo Grecian drop 
Kebukes these veins that leap with kin- 
dred thrill, 
After long exile, to the mother -tongue. 

Ovid in Pont us, puling for his Rome 

Of men invirile and disnatured dames 

That poison sucked from the Attic 
bloom decayed, 

Shrank with a shudder from the blue- 
eyed race 

Whose force rough-handed should re- 
new the world, 

And from the dregs of Romulus express 

Such wine as Dante poured, or he who 
blew 

Roland's vain blast, or sang the Cam- 
peador 

In verse that clanks like armor in the 
charge, — 

Homeric juice, if brimmed in Odin's 
horn. 

And they could build, if not the col- 
umned fane 

That from the height gleamed seaward 
many-hued, 

Something more friendly with their 
ruder skies : 

The gray spire, molten now in driving 
mist, 

Now lulled with the incommunicable 
blue ; 

The carvings touched to meanings new 
with snow, 

Or commented with fleeting grace of 
shade ; 

The statues, motley as man's memory, 

Partial as that, so mixed of true and 
false, 

History and legend meeting with a kiss 



Across this bound-mark where their 

realms confine ; . 
The painted windows, freaking gloom 

with glow, 
Dusking the sunshine which they seem 

to cheer, 
Meet symbol of the senses and the soul v 
And the whole pile, grim with the 

Northman's thought 
Of life and death, and doom, life's equal 

fee, — 
These were before me : and I gazed 

abashed, 
Child of an age that lectures, not creates, 
Plastering our swallow-nests on the aw- 
ful Past, 
And twittering round the work of larger 

men, 
As we had builded what we butf deface. 
Far up the great bells wallowed in de- 
light, 
Tossing their clangors o'er the heedless 

town, 
To call the worshippers who never came, 
Or women mostly, in loath twos and 

threes. 
I entered, reverent of whatever shrine 
Guards piety and solace for my kind 
Or gives the soul a moment's truce of 

God, 
And shared decorous in the ancient rite 
My sterner fathers held idolatrous. 
The service over, I was tranced in 

thought : 
Solemn the deepening vaults, and most 

to me, 
Fresh from the fragile realm of deal and 

paint, 
Or brick mock-pious with a marble 

front ; 
Solemn the lift of high-embowered roof, 
The clustered stems that spread in 

boughs disleaved, 
Through which the organ blew a dream 

of storm, — 
Though not more potent to sublime 

with awe 
And shut the heart up in tranquillity, 
Than aisles to me familiar that o'erarch 
The conscious silences of brooding 

woods, 
Centurial shadows, cloisters of the elk : 
Yet here was sense of undefined regret, 
Irreparable loss, uncertain what : 
Was all this grandeur but anachro- 
nism, — 
A shell divorced of its informing life, 



398 



THE CATHEDRAL. 



Where the priest housed him like a 

hermit-crab, 
An alien to that faith of elder days 
That gathered round it this fair shape 

of stone? 
Is old Religion but a spectre now, 
Haunting the solitude of darkened 

minds, 
Mocked out of memory by the sceptic 

day? 
Is there no corner safe from peeping 

Doubt, 
Since Gutenberg made thought cosmop- 
olite 
And stretched electric threads from 

mind to mind? 
Nay, did Faith build this wonder ? or 

did Fear, 
That makes a fetish and misnames it God 
(Blockish or metaphysic, matters not), 
Contrive this coop to shut its tyrant in, 
Appeased with playthings, that he might 

not harm ? 

I turned and saw a beldame on her 
knees ; 

With eyes astray, she told mechanic 
beads 

Before some shrine of saintly woman- 
hood, 

Bribed intercessor with the far-off Judge : 

Such my first thought, by kindlier soon 
rebuked, 

Pleading for whatsoever touches life 

With upward impulse : be He nowhere 
else, 

God is in all that liberates and lifts, 

In all that humbles, sweetens, and con- 
soles : 

Blessed the natures shored on every side 

With landmarks of hereditary thought ! 

Thrice happy they that wander not life- 
long 

Beyond near succor of the household 
faith, 

The guarded fold that shelters, not con- 
fines ! 

Their steps find patience in familiar 
paths, 

Printed Avith hope by loved feet gone 
before 

Of parent, child, or lover, glorified 

By simple magic of dividing Time. 

My lids were moistened as the woman 
knelt, 

And — was it will, or some vibration 
faint 



Of sacred Nature, deeper than the 

will? — 
My heart occultly felt itself in hers, 
Through mutual intercession gently 

leagued. 

Or was it not mere sympathy of brain ? 
A sweetness intellectually conceived 
In simpler creeds to me impossible ? 
A juggle of that pity for ourselves 
In others, which puts on such pretty 

masks 
And snares self-love with bait of charity ? 
Something of all it might be, or of none : 
Yet for a moment I was snatched away 
And had the evidence of things not seen ; 
For one rapt moment ; then it all came 

back, 
This age that blots out life with question- 
marks, 
This nineteenth century with its knife 

and glass 
That make thought physical, and thrust 

far off 
The Heaven, so neighborly with man of 

old, 
To voids sparse-sown with alienated 

stars. 

'T is irrecoverable, that ancient faith, 
Homely and wholesome, suited to the 

time, 
With rod or candy for child-minded 

men : 
No theologic tube, with lens on lens 
Of syllogism transparent, brings it 

near, — 
At best resolving some new nebula, 
Or blurring some fixed-star of hope to 

mist. 
Science was Faith once ; Faith were 

Science now, 
Would she but lay her bow and arrows by 
And arm her with the weapons of the 

time. 
Nothing that keeps thought out is safe 

from thought. 
For there 's no virgin-fort but self- 
respect, 
And Truth defensive hath lost hold on 

God. 
Shall we treat Him as if He were a child 
That knew not His own purpose ? nor 

dare trust 
The Rock of Ages to their chemic tests, 
Lest some day the all- sustaining base 

divine 



THE CATHEDRAL. 



399 



Should fail from under us, dissolved in 
gas? 

The armed eye that with a glance dis- 
cerns 

In a dry blood-speck between ox and 
man, 

Stares helpless at this miracle called 
life, 

This shaping potency behind the egg f 

This circulation swift of deity, 

Where suns and systems inconspicuous 
float 

As the poor blood-disks in our mortal 
veins. 

^Each age must worship its own thought 
of God, 

More or less earthy, clarifying still 

With subsidence continuous of the dregs ; 

Nor saint nor sage could fix immutably 

The fluent image of the unstable Best, 

Still changing in their very hands that 
wrought : 

To-day's eternal truth To-morrow proved 

Frail as frost-landscapes on a window- 
pane. 

Meanwhile Thou smiledst, inaccessible, 

At Thought's own substance made a cage 
for Thought, 

And Truth locked fast with her own 
master-key ; 

Nor didst Thou reck what image man 
might make 

Of his own shadow on the flowing world ; 

The climbing instinct was enough for 
Thee. 

Or wast Thou, then, an ebbing tide that 
left 

Strewn with dead miracle those eldest 
shores, 

For men to dry, and dryly lecture on, 

Thyself thenceforth incapable of flood ? 

Idle who hopes with prophets to be 
snatched 

By virtue in their mantles left below ; 

Shall the soul live on other men's report, 

Herself a pleasing fable of herself ? 

Man cannot be God's outlaw if he would, 

Nor so abscond him in the caves of 
sense 

But Nature still shall search some crev- 
ice out 

With messages of splendor from that 
Source 

Which, dive he, soar he, baffles still and 
lures. 

This life were brutish did we not some- 
times 



Have intimation clear of wider scope, 

Hints of occasion infinite, to keep 

The soul alert with noble discontent 

And onward yearnings of unstilled de- 
sire ; 

Fruitless, except we now and then di- 
vined 

A mystery of Purpose, gleaming through 

The secular confusions of the world, 

Whose will we darkly accomplish, doing 
ours. 

No man can think nor in himself per- 
ceive, 

Sometimes at waking, in the street 
sometimes, 

Or on the hillside, always un forewarned, 

A grace of being, finer than himself, 

That beckons and is gone, — - a larger 
life 

Upon his own impinging, with swift 
glimpse 

Of spacious circles luminous with mind, 

To which the ethereal substance of his 
own 

Seems but gross cloud to make that 
visible, 

Touched to a sudden glory round the 
edge. 

Who that hath known these visitations 
fleet 

Would strive to make them trite and 
ritual ? 

I, that still pray at morning and at eve, 

Loving those roots that feed us from the 
past, 

And prizing more than Plato things I I 
learned 

At that best academe, a mother's knee, 

Thrice in my life perhaps have truly l - 
prayed, 

Thrice, stirred below my conscious self, 
have felt 

That perfect disenthral men t which is 
God; 

Nor know I which to hold worst 
enemy, — 

Him who on speculation's windy waste 

Would turn me loose, stript of the rai- 
ment warm 

By Faith contrived against our naked- 
ness, 

Or him who, cruel-kind, would fain 
obscure, 

With painted saints and paraphrase of 
God, 

The soul's east-window of divine sur- 
prise. 



400 



THE CATHEDRAL. 



Where others worship I but look and 

long; 
For, though not recreant to my fathers' 

faith, 
/ Its forms to me are weariness, and most 
That drony vacuum of compulsory 

prayer, 
Still pumping phrases for the Ineffable, 
Though all the valves of memory gasp 

and wheeze. 
Words that have drawn transcendent 

meanings up 
From the best passion of all bygone 

time, 
Steeped through with tears of triumph 

and remorse, 
Sweet with all sainthood, cleansed in 

martyr-fires, 
Can they, so consecrate and so inspired, 
By repetition wane to vexing wind ? 
Alas ! we cannot draw habitual breath 
In the thin air of life's supremer heights, 
"• We cannot make each meal a sacrament, 
Nor with our tailors be disbodied souls, — 
W^e men, too conscious of earth's comedy, 
Who see two sides, with our posed selves 

debate, 
And only for great stakes can be sub' 

lime ! 
Let us be thankful when, as I do here, 
/ We can read Bethel on a pile of stones, 
(. And, seeing where God has been, trust 

in Him. 

Brave Peter Fischer there in Nuremberg, 
Moulding Saint Sebald's miracles in 

bronze, 
C Put saint and stander-by in that quaint 

garb 
Familiar to him in his daily walk, 
Not doubting God could grant a miracle 
Then and in Nuremberg, if so He would ; 
But never artist for three hundred years 
Hath dared the contradiction ludicrous 
Of supernatural in modern clothes. 
Perhaps the deeper faith that is to come 
Will see God rather in the strenuous 

doubt, 
Than in the creed held as an infant's 

hand 
Holds purposeless whatsois placed there- 



Say it is drift, not progress, none the 

less, 
With the old sextant of the fathers' 

creed, 



We shape our courses by new-risen stars, 

And, still lip-loyal to what once was 
truth, 

Smuggle new meanings under ancient 
names, 

Unconscious perverts of the Jesuit, Time. 

Change is the mask that all Continuance 
wears 

To keep us youngsters harmlessly 
amused ; 

Meanwhile some ailing or more watchful 
child, 

Sitting apart, sees the old eyes gleam 
out, 

Stern, and yet soft with humorous pity 
too. 

Whilere, men burnt men for a doubtful 
point, 

As if the mind were quenchable with 
fire, 

And Faith danced round them with her 
war-paint on, 

Devoutly savage as an Iroquois ; 

Now Calvin and Servetus at one board 

Snuff in grave sympathy a milder roast, 

And o'er their claret settle Comte unread. 

Fagot and stake were desperately sin- 
cere : 
^-Our cooler martyrdoms are done in types ; , 

And flames that shine in controversial 
eyes 

Burn out no brains but his who kindles 
them. 

This is no age to get cathedrals built : 

Did God, then, wait for one in Bethle- 
hem ? 

Worst is not yet : lo, where his coming 
looms, 

Of Earth's anarchic children latest born, 

Democracy, a Titan who hath learned 

To laugh at Jove's old-fashioned thun- 
derbolts, — 

Could he not also forge them, if he 
would ? 

He, better skilled, with solvents merci- 
less, 

Loosened in air and borne on every wind, 

Saps un perceived : the calm Olympian 
height 

Of ancient order feels its bases yield, 

And pale gods glance for help to gods as 
pale. 

What will be left of good or worshipful, 

Of spiritual secrets, mysteries, 

Of fair religion's guarded heritage, 

Heirlooms of soul, passed downward un- 
profaned 



THE CATHEDRAL. 



401 



From eldest Ind ? This Western giant 

coarse, 
Scorning refinements which he lacks 

himself, 
Loves not nor heeds the ancestral hie- 
rarchies, 
Each rank dependent on the next above 
In orderly gradation fixed as fate. 
King by mere manhood, nor allowing 

aught 
Of holier unction than the sweat of toil ; 
In his own strength sufficient ; called to 

solve, 
On the rough edges of society, 
Problems long sacred to the choicer few, 
And improvise what elsewhere men re- 
ceive 
As gifts of deity ; tough foundling reared 
Where every man 's his own Melchise- 

dek, 
How make him reverent of a King of 

kings ? 
Or Judge self-made, executor of laws 
By him not first discussed and voted on ? 
For him no tree of knowledge is forbid, 
Or sweeter if forbid. How save the 

ark, 
Or holy of holies, unprofaned a day 
From his unscrupulous curiosity 
That handles everything as if to buy, 
Tossing aside what fabrics delicate 
Suit not the rough-and-tumble of his 

ways? 
What hope for those fine-nerved humani- 
ties 
That made earth gracious once with 

gentler arts, 
Now the rude hands have caught the 

trick of thought 
And claim an equal suffrage with the 
brain ? 

The born disciple of an elder time, 

(To me sufficient, friendlier than the 

new, ) 
Who in my blood feel motions of the 

Past, 
I thank benignant nature most for 

this, — 
A force of sympathy, or call it lack 
Of character firm-planted, loosing me 
From the pent chamber of habitual 

self 
To dwell enlarged in alien modes of 

thought, 
Haply distasteful, wholesomer for that, 
And through imagination to possess, 



As they were mine, the lives of other 

men. 
This growth original of virgin soil, 
By fascination felt in opposites, 
Pleases and shocks, entices and perturbs. 
In this brown-fisted rough, this shirt- 
sleeved Cid, 
This backwoods Charlemagne of empires 

new, 
Whose blundering heel instinctively 

finds out 
The goutier foot of speechless dignities, 
Who, meeting Caesar's self, would slap 

his back, 
Call him " Old Horse," and challenge to 

a drink, 
My lungs draw braver air, my breast 

dilates 
With ampler manhood, and I front both 

worlds, 
Of sense and spirit, as my natural fiefs, 
To shape and then reshape them as I 

will. 
It was the first man's charter ; why not 

mine ? 
How forfeit? when deposed in other 

hands ? 

Thou shudder' st, Ovid? Dost in him 

forebode 
A new avatar of the large-limbed Goth, 
To break, or seem to break, tradition's 

clew, 
And chase to dreamland back thy gods 

dethroned ? 
I think man's soul dwells nearer to the 

east, 
Nearer to morning's fountains than the 

sun; 
Herself the source whence all tradition 

sprang, 
Herself at once both labyrinth and clew. 
The miracle fades out of history, 
But faith and wonder and the primal 

earth 
Are born into the world with every child. 
Shall this self-maker with the prying 

eyes, 
This creature disenchanted of respect 
By the New World's new fiend, Pub- 
licity, 
Whose testing thumb leaves everywhere 

its smutch, 
Not one day feel within himself the need 
Of loyalty to better than himself, 
That shall ennoble him with the upward 

look? 



402 



THE CATHEDRAL. 



Shall lie not catch the Voice that wan- 
ders earth, 
With spiritual summons, dreamed or 

heard, 
As sometimes, just ere sleep seals up the 

sense, 
We hear our mother call from deeps of 

Time, 
And, waking, find it vision, — none the 

less 
The benediction bides, old skies return, 
And that unreal thing, pre-eminent, 
Makes air and dream of all we see and 

feel ? 
Shall he divine no strength unmade of 

votes, 
Inward, impregnable, found soon as 

sought, 
Not cognizable of sense, o'er sense su- 



preme 



His holy places may not be of stone, 
Nor made with hands, yet fairer far than 

aught 
By artist feigned or pious ardor reared,- 
Fit altars for who guards inviolate 
God's chosen seat, the sacred form of 

man. 
Doubtless his church will be no hospital 
For superannuate forms and mumping 

shams, 
No parlor where men issue policies 
Of life-assurance on the Eternal Mind, 
Nor his religion but an ambulance 
To fetch life's wounded and malinger- 
ers in, 
Scorned by the strong; yet he, uncon- 
scious heir 
To the influence sweet of Athens and of 

Rome, 
And old Judaea's gift of secret fire, 
Spite of himself shall surely learn to 

know 
And worship some ideal of himself, 
Some divine thing, large-hearted, broth- 
erly,; 
Not nice in trifles, a soft creditor, 
Pleased with his world, and hating only 

cant. 
And, if his Church be doubtful, it is 

sure 
That, in a world, made for whatever else, 
Not made for mere enjoyment, in a 

world 
Of toil but half-requited, or, at best, 
Paid in some futile currency of breath, 
A world of incompleteness, sorrow swift 
And consolation laggard, whatsoe'er 



The form of building or the creed pro- 
fessed, 

The Cross, bold type of shame to hom- 
age turned, 

Of an unfinished life that sways the 
world, 

Shall tower as sovereign emblem over 

The kobold Thought moves with us 

when we shift 
Our dwelling to escape him ; perched 

aloft 
On the first load of household-stuff he 

went ; 
For, where the mind goes, goes old fur- 
niture. 
I, who to Chartres came to feed my eye 
And give to Fancy one clear holiday, 
Scarce saw the minster for the thoughts 

it stirred 
Buzzing o'er past and future with vain 

quest. 
Here once there stood a homely wooden 

church, 
Which slow devotion nobly changed for 

this 
That echoes vaguely to my modern 

steps. 
By suffrage universal it was built, 
As practised then, for all the country 

came 
From far as Rouen, to give votes for 

God, 
Each vote a block of stone securely laid 
Obedient to the master's deep-mused 

plan. 
Will what our ballots rear, responsible 
To no grave forethought, stand so long 

as this ? 
Delight like this the eye of after days 
Brightening with pride that here, at 

least, were men 
Who meant and did the noblest thing 

they knew? 
Can our religion cope with deeds like 

this? 
We, too, build Gothic contract- shams, 

because 
Our deacons have discovered that it pays, 
And pews sell better under vaulted roofs 
Of plaster painted like an Indian squaw. 
Shall not that Western Goth, of whom 

we spoke, 
So fiercely practical, so keen of eye, 
Find out, some day, that nothing pays 

but God, 



THE CATHEDRAL. 



403 



Served whether on the smoke-shut bat- 
tle-field, 
In work obscure done honestly, or vote 
For truth unpopular, or faith maintained 
To ruinous convictions, or good deeds 
Wrought for good's sake, mindless of 

heaven or hell ? 
Shall he not learn that all prosperity, 
Whose bases stretch not deeper than the 

sense, 
Is but a trick of this world's atmosphere, 
A desert-born mirage of spire and dome, 
Or find too late, the Past's long lesson 

missed, 
That dust the prophets shake from off 

their feet 
Grows heavy to drag down both tower 

and wall ? 
I know not ; but, sustained by sure 

belief 
That man still rises level with the height 
Of noblest opportunities, or makes 
Such, if the time supply not, I can wait. 
I gaze round on the windows, pride of 

France, 
Each the bright gift of some mechanic 

guild 
Who loved their city and thought gold 

well spent 
To make her beautiful with piety ; 
I pause, transfigured by some stripe of 

bloom, 
And my mind throngs with shining 

auguries, 
Circle on circle, bright as seraphim, 
With golden trumpets, silent, that await 
The signal to blow news of good to men. 

Then the revulsion came that always 

comes 
After these dizzy elations of the mind : 
And with a passionate pang of doubt I 

cried, 
" mountain -born, sweet with snow- 
filtered air 
From un contaminate wells of ether drawn 
And never-broken secrecies of sky, 
Freedom, with anguish won, misprized 

till lost, 
They keep thee not who from thy sacred 

eyes 
Catch the consuming lust of sensual 

good 
And the brute's license of unfettered 

will. 
Far from the popular shout and venal 

breath 



Of Cleon blowing the mob's baser mind 
To bubbles of wind-piloted conceit, 
Thou shrink est, gathering up thy skirts, 

to hide 
In fortresses of solitary thought 
And private virtue strong in self-re- 
straint. 
Must we too forfeit thee misunderstood, 
Content with names, nor inly wise to 

know 
That best things perish of their own ex- 
cess, 
And quality o'er-driven becomes defect? 
Nay, is it thou indeed that we have 

glimpsed, 
Or rather such illusion as of old 
Through Athens glided menadlike and 

Rome, 
A shape of vapor, mother of vain dreams 
And mutinous traditions, specious plea 
Of the glaived tyrant and long-memoried 
priest ? " 

I walked forth saddened ; for all thought 

is sad, 
And leaves a bitterish savor in the 

brain, 
Tonic, it may be, not delectable, 
And turned, reluctant, for a parting look 
At those old weather-pitted images 
Of bygone struggle, now so sternly calm. 
About their shoulders sparrows had 

built nests, 
And fluttered, chirping, from gray perch 

to perch, 
Now on a mitre poising, now a crown, 
Irreverently happy. While I thought 
How confident they were, what, careless 

hearts 
Flew on those lightsome wings and 

shared the sun, 
A larger shadow r crossed ; and looking 

up, 
I saw where, nesting in the hoary towers, 
The sparrow-hawk slid forth on noise- 
less air, 
With sidelong head that watched the 

joy below, 
Grim Norman baron o'er this clan of 

Kelts. 
Enduring Nature, force conservative, 
Indifferent to our noisy whims ! Men 

prate 
Of all heads to an equal grade cashiered 
On level with the dullest, and expect 
(Sick of no worse distemper than them- 
selves) 



404 



THE CATHEDRAL. 



A wondrous cure-all in equality ; 

They reason that To-morrow must be 
wise 

Because To-day was not, nor Yesterday, 

As if good days were shapen of them- 
selves, 

Not of the very lifeblood of men's souls ; 

Meanwhile, long-suffering, imperturb- 
able, 

Thou quietly complet'st thy syllogism, 

And from the premise sparrow here below 

Draw'st sure conclusion of the hawk 
above, 

Pleased with the soft- billed songster, 
pleased no less 

With the fierce beak of natures aquiline. 

Thou beautiful Old Time, now hid away 

In the Past's valley of Avilion, 

Haply, like Arthur, till thy wound be 

healed, 
Then to reclaim the sword and crown 

again ! 
Thrice beautiful to us ; perchance less 

fair 
To who possessed thee, as a mountain 

seems 
To dwellers round its bases but a heap 
Of barren obstacle that lairs the storm 
And the avalanche's silent bolt holds 

back 
Leashed with a hair, — meanwhile some 

far- off clown, 
Hereditary delver of the plain, 
Sees it an unmoved vision of repose, 
Nest of the morning, and conjectures 

there 
The dance of streams to idle shepherds' 

pipes, 
And fairer habitations softly hung 
On breezy slopes, or hid in valleys cool, 
For happier men. No mortal ever 

dreams 
That the scant isthmus he encamps upon 
Between two oceans, one, the Stormy, 

passed, 
And one, the Peaceful, yet to venture 

on, 



Has been that future whereto prophets 

yearned 
For the fulfilment of Earth's cheated 

hope, 
Shall be that past which nerveless poets 

moan 
As the lost opportunity of song. 

Power, more near my life than life 

itself 
(Or what seems life to us in sense im- 
mured), 
Even as the roots, shut in the darksome 

earth, 
Share in the tree-top's joyance, and 

conceive 
Of sunshine and wide air and winged 

things 
By sympathy of nature, so do I 
Have evidence of Thee so far above, 
Yet in and of me ! Pvather Thou the 

root 
Invisibly sustaining, hid in light, 
Not darkness, or in darkness made by 

us. 
If sometimes I must hear good men 

debate 
Of other witness of Thyself than Thou, 
As if there needed any help of ours 
To nurse Thy flickering life, that else 

must cease, 
Blown out, as 't were a candle, by men's 

breath, 
My soul shall not be taken in their snare, 
To change her inward surety for their 

doubt 
Muffled from sight in formal robes of 

proof : 
While she can only feel herself through 

Thee, 

1 fear not Thy withdrawal ; more I fear, 
Seeing, to know Thee not, hoodwinked 

with dreams 
Of signs and wonders, while, unnoticed, 

Thou, 
Walking Thy garden still, commun'st 

with men, 
Missed in the commonplace of miracle. 



THEEE MEMOEIAL POEMS. 



" Coscienza fusca 
O della propria o dell' altrui vergogna 
Pur sentira la tua parola brusca." 

If I let fall a word of bitter mirth 

When public shames more shameful pardon won, 

Some have misjudged me, and my service done, 

If small, yet faithful, deemed of little worth : 

Through veins that drew their life from Western earth 

Two hundred years and more my blood hath run 

In no polluted course from sire to son ; 

And thus was I predestined ere my birth 

To love the soil wherewith my fibres own 

Instinctive sympathies ; yet love it so 

As honor would, nor lightly to dethrone 

Judgment, the stamp of manhood, nor forego 

The son's right to a mother dearer grown 

With growing knowledge and more chaste than snow. 




THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. 



TO 

E. L. GODKIN, 

IN CORDIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS EMINENT SERVICE 

IN HEIGHTENING AND PURIFYING THE TONE 

OP OUR POLITICAL THOUGHT, 

2Tfns ITolume 

IS DEDICATED. 



% * Readers, it is hoped, will remember that, by his Ode at the Harvard Com- 
memoration, the author had precluded himself from many of the natural outlets 
of thought and feeling common to such occasions as are celebrated in this little 
volume. 



ODE 

READ AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNI- 
VERSARY OF THE FIGHT AT CONCORD 
BRIDGE. 

19th April, 1875. 

I. 

Who cometh over the hills, 
Her garments with morning sweet, 
The dance of a thousand rills 
Making music before her feet ? 
Her presence freshens the air ; 
Sunshine steals light from her face ; 
The leaden footstep of Care 
Leaps to the tune of her pace, 
Fairness of all that is fair, 
Grace at the heart of all grace, 
Sweetener of hut and of hall, 
Bringer of life out of naught, 
Freedom, 0, fairest of all 
The daughters of Time and Thought ! 

II. 

She cometh, cometh to-day : 
Hark ! hear ye not her tread, 
Sending a thrill through your clay, 
Under the sod there, ye dead, 
Her nurslings and champions ? 
Do ye not hear, as she comes, 
The bay of the deep-mouthed guns, 



The gathering buzz of the drums ? 
The bells that called ye to prayer, 
How wildly they clamor on her, 
Ciying, "She cometh ! prepare 
Her to praise and her to honor, 
That a hundred years ago 
Scattered here in blood and tears 
Potent seeds wlierefrom should grow 
Gladness for a hundred years ! " 



Tell me, young men, have ye seen, 
Creature of diviner mien 
For true hearts to long and cry for, 
Manly hearts to live and die for ? 
What hath she that others want ? 
Brows that all endearments haunt, 
Eyes that make it sweet to dare, 
Smiles that glad untimely death, 
Looks that fortify despair, 
Tones more brave than trumpet's breath ; 
Tell me, maidens, have ye known 
Household charm more sweetly rare, 
Grace of woman ampler blown, 
Modesty more debonair, 
Younger heart with wit full grown ? 
for an hour of my prime, 
The pulse of my hotter years, 
That I might praise her in rhyme 
Would tingle your eyelids to tears, 
Our sweetness, our strength, and our star, 



408 



THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. 



Our hope, onr joy, and our trust, 
Who lifted us out of the dust, 
And made us whatever we are ! 

IV. 

Whiter than moonshine upon snow 
Her raiment is, but round the hem 
Crimson stained ; and, as to and fro 
Her sandals flash, we see on them, 
And on her instep veined with blue, 
Flecks of crimson, on those fair feet, 
High-arched, Diana-like, and fleet, 
Fit for no grosser stain than dew : 
0, call them rather chrisms than stains, 
Sacred and from heroic veins ! 
For, in the glory-guarded pass, 
Her haughty and far-shining head 
She bowed to shrive Leonidas 
With his imperishable dead ; 
Her, too, Morgarten saw, 
Where the Swiss lion fleshed his icy paw; 
She followed Cromwell's quenchless star 
Where the grim Puritan tread 
Shook Marston, Naseby, and Dunbar : 
Yea, on her feet are dearer dyes 
Yet fresh, nor looked on with un tearful 
eyes. 

v. 
Our fathers found her in the woods 
Where Nature meditates. and broods, 
The seeds of unexampled things 
Which Time to consummation brings 
Through life and death and man's un- 
stable moods ; 
They met her here, not recognized, 
A sylvan huntress clothed in furs, 
To whose chaste wants her bow sufficed, 
Nor dreamed what destinies were hers : 
She taught them bee-like to create 
Their simpler forms of Church and State; 
She taught them to endue 
The past with other functions than it 

knew, 
And turn in channels strange the uncer- 
tain stream of Fate ; 
Better than all, she fenced them in their 

need 
With iron-handed Duty's sternest creed, 
'Gainst Self's lean wolf that ravens word 
and deed. 

VI. 

Why cometh she hither to-day 
To this low village of the plain 
Far from the Present's loud highway, 
From Trade's cool heart and seething 
brain ? 



Why cometh she ? She was not far away. 
Since the soul touched it, not in vain, 
With pathos of immortal gain, 
'T is here her fondest memories stay. 
She loves yon pine-bemurmured ridge 
Where now our broad-browed poet sleeps, 
Dear to both England s ; near him he 
Who wore the ring of Canace ; 
But most her heart to rapture leaps 
Where stood that era-parting bridge, 
O'er which, with footfall still as dew, 
The Old Time passed into the New ; 
Where, as your stealthy river creeps, 
He whispers to his listening weeds 
Tales of sublimest homespun deeds. 
Here English law and English thought 
'Gainst the self-will of England fought ; 
And here were men (coequal with their 

fate), 
Who did great things, unconscious they 

were great. 
They dreamed not what a die was cast 
With that first answering shot ; what 

then ? 
There was their duty ; they were men 
Schooled the soul's inward gospel to obey, 
Though leading to the lion's den. 
They felt the habit-hallowed world give 

way 
Beneath their lives, and on went they,. 
Unhappy who was last. 
When Buttrick gave the word, 
That awful idol of the unchallenged Past, 
Strong in their love, and in their lineage 

strong, 
Fell crashing : if they heard it not, 
Yet the earth heard, 
Nor ever hath forgot, 
As on from startled throne to throne, 
Where Superstition sate or conscious 

Wrong, 
A shudder ran of some dread birth un- 
known. 
Thrice venerable spot ! 
River more fateful than the Rubicon ! 
O'er those red planks, to snatch her dia- 
dem, 
Man's Hope, star-girdled, sprang with 

them, 
And over ways untried the feet of Doom 
strode on. 

VII. 

Think you these felt no charms 

In their gray homesteads and embowered 

farms ? 
In household faces waiting at the door 



ODE READ AT CONCORD. 



409 



Their evening step should lighten up no 

more ? 
In fields their boyish feet had known ? 
In trees their fathers' hands had set, 
And which with them had grown, 
Widening each year their leafy coronet ? 
Felt they no pang of passionate regret 
For those unsolid goods that seem so 

much our own ? 
These things are dear to every man that 

lives, 
And life prized more for what it lends 

than gives. 
Yea, inany a tie, by iteration sweet, 
Strove to detain their fatal feet ; 
And yet the enduring half they chose, 
Whose choice decides a man life's slave 

or king, 
The invisible things of God before the 

seen and known : 
Therefore their memory inspiration blows 
With echoes gathering on from zone to 

zone ; 
For manhood is the one immortal thing 
Beneath Time's changeful sky, 
And, where it lightened once, from age 

to age, 
Men come to learu, in grateful pilgrim- 
age, 
That length of days is knowing when to 

die. 

VIII. 

What marvellous change of things and 

men ! 
She, a world-wandering orphan then, 
So mighty now ! Those are her streams 
That whirl the myriad, myriad wheels 
Of all that does, and all that dreams, 
Of all that thinks, and all that feels, 
Through spaces stretched from sea to sea ; 
By idle tongues and busy brains, 
By who doth right, and who refrains, 
Hers are our losses and our gains ; 
Our maker and our victim she. 



Maiden half mortal, half divine, 

We triumphed in thy coming ; to the 
brinks 

Our hearts were filled with pride's tu- 
multuous wine ; 

Better to-day who rather feels than 
thinks. 

Yet will some graver thoughts intrude, 

And cares of sterner mood ; 

They won thee : who shall keep thee ? 
From the deeps 



Where discrowned empires o'er their 
ruins brood, 

And many a thwarted hope wrings its 
weak hands and weeps, 

I hear the voice as of a mighty wind 

From all heaven's caverns rushing un- 
confined, 

"I, Freedom, dwell with Knowledge: 
I abide 

With men whom dust of faction cannot 
blind 

To the slow tracings of the Eternal 
Mind; 

With men by culture trained and for- 
tified, 

Who bitter duty to sweet lusts prefer, 

Fearless to counsel and obey. 

Conscience my sceptre is, a'nd law my 
sword, 

Not to be drawn in passion or in play, 

But terrible to punish and deter ; 

Implacable as God's word, 

Like it, a shepherd's crook to them that 
blindly err. 

Your firm -pulsed sires, my martyrs and 
my saints, 

Shoots of that only race whose patient 
sense 

Hath known to mingle flux with per- 
manence, 

Rated my chaste denials and restraints 

Above the moment's dear-paid para- 
dise : 

Beware lest, shifting with Time's gradual 
creep, 

The light that guided shine into your 
eyes. 

The envious Powers of ill nor wink nor 
sleep : 

Be therefore timely wise, 

Nor laugh when this one steals, and that 
one lies, 

As if your luck could cheat those sleep- 
less spies, 

Till the deaf Fury comes your house to 
sweep ! " 

I hear the voice, and unaffrighted bow ; 

Ye shall not be prophetic now, 

Heralds of ill, that darkening fly 

Between my vision and the rainbowed 
sky, 

Or on the ]eft your hoarse forebodings 
croak 

From many a blasted bough 

On Yggdrasil's storm-sinewed oak, 

That once was green, Hope of the West, 
as thou ; 



410 



THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. 



I 



Yet pardon if I tremble while I boast ; 

For I have loved as those who pardon 
most. 

x. 
Away, ungrateful doubt, away ! 
At least she is our own to-day. 
Break into rapture, my song, 
Verses, leap forth in the sun, 
Bearing the joyance along 
Like a train of fire as ye run ! 
Pause not for choosing of words, 
Let them but blossom and sing 
Blithe as the orchards and birds 
"With the new coming of spring ! 
Dance in your jollity, bells ; 
Shout, cannon ; cease not, ye drums ; 
Answer, ye hillside and dells ; 
Bow, all ye people ! She comes, 
Radiant, calm-fronted, as when 
She hallowed that April day. 
Stay with us ! Yes, thou shalt stay, 
Softener and strengthener of men, 
Freedom, not won by the vain, 
Not to be courted in play, 
Not to be kept without pain. 
Stay with us ! Yes, thou wilt stay, 
Handmaid and mistress of all, 
Kindler of deed and of thought, 
Thou that to hut and to hall 
Equal deliverance brought ! 
Souls of her martyrs, draw near, 
Touch our dull lips with your fire, 
That we may praise without fear 
Her our delight, our desire, 
Our faith's inextinguishable star, 
Our hope, our remembrance, our trust, 
Our present, our past, our to be, 
"Who will mingle her life with our dust 
And makes us deserve to be free ! 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 

POEM READ AT CAMBRIDGE ON THE 
HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF WASH- 
INGTON'S TAKING COMMAND OF THE 
AMERICAN ARMY, 3D JULY, 1775. 

I. 
1. 

Words pass as wind, but where great 

deeds were done 
A power abides transfused from sire to 

son : 
The boy feels deeper meanings thrill his 

ear, 



That tingling through his pulse life-long 

shall run, 
With sure impulsion to keep honor clear, 
"When, pointing down, his father whis- 
pers, " Here, 
Here, where we stand, stood he, the 

purely Great, 
W T hose soul no siren passion could un- 

sphere, 
Then nameless, now a power and mixed 

with fate." 
Historic town, thou holdest sacred dust, 
Once known to men as pious, learned, 

just, 
And one memorial pile that dares to last ; 
But Memory greets with reverential kiss 
No spot in all thy circuit sweet as this, 
Touched by that modest glory as it past, 
O'er which yon elm hath piously dis- 
played 
These hundred years its monumental 
shade. 

2. 
Of our swift passage through this scenery 
Of life and death, more durable than we, 
What landmark so congenial as a tree 
Repeating its green legend every spring, 
And, with a yearly ring, 
Recording the fair seasons as they flee, 
Type of our brief but still-renewed 

mortality ? 
We fall as leaves : the immortal trunk 

remains, 
Builded with costly juice of hearts and 

brains 
Gone to the mould now, whither all that 

be 
Vanish returnless, yet are procreant still 
In human lives to come of good or ill, 
And feed unseen the roots of Destiny. 



II. 

1. 

Men's monuments, grown old, forget 

their names 
They should eternize, but the place 
Where shining souls have passed imbibes 

a grace 
Beyond mere earth ; some sweetness of 

their fames 
Leaves in the soil its unextinguished 

trace, 
Pungent, pathetic, sad with nobler aims, 
That penetrates our lives and heightens 

them or shames. 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 



411 



This insubstantial world and fleet 
Seems solid for a moment when we stand 
On dust ennobled by heroic feet 
Once mighty to sustain a tottering land, 
And mighty still such burthen to upbear, 
Nor doomed to tread the path of things 

that merely were : 
Our sense, refined with virtue of the spot, 
Across the mists of Lethe's sleepy stream 
Recalls him, the sole chief without a 

blot, 
No more a pallid image and a dream, 
But as he dwelt with men decorously 

supreme. 

2. 
Our grosser minds need this terrestrial 

hint 
To raise long-buried days from tombs of 

print : 
"Here stood he," softly we repeat, 
And lo, the statue shrined and still 
In that gray minster-front we call the 

Past, 
Feels in its frozen veins our pulses thrill, 
Breathes living air and mocks at Death's 

deceit. 
It warms, it stirs, comes down to us at 

last, 
Its features human with familiar light, 
A man, beyond the historian's art to kill, 
Or sculptor's to efface with patient chisel- 
blight. 

3. 
Sure the dumb earth hath memory, nor 

for naught 
Was Fancy given, on whose enchanted 

loom * 

Present and Past commingle, fruit and 

bloom 
Of one. fair bough, inseparably wrought 
Into the seamless tapestry of thought. 
So charmed, with undeluded eye we see 
In history's fragmentary tale 
Bright clews of continuity, 
Learn that high natures over Time pre- 
vail, 
And feel ourselves a link in that entail 
That binds all ages past with all that 

are to be. 

III. 

1. 

Beneath our consecrated elm 
A century ago he stood, 
Famed, vaguely for that old fight in the 
wood 



Whose red surge sought, but could not 

overwhelm 
The life foredoomed to wield our rough- 
hewn helm : — 
From colleges, where now the gown 
To arms had yielded, from the town, 
Our rude self-summoned levies flocked 

to see 
The new-come chiefs and wonder which 

was he. 
No need to question long ; close-lipped 

and tall, 
Long trained in murder-brooding forests 

lone 
To bridle others' clamors and his own, 
Firmly erect, he towered above them 

all, 
The incarnate discipline that was to 

free 
With iron curb that armed democracy. 



A motley rout was that which came to 

stare, 
In raiment tanned by years of sun and 

storm, 
Of every shape that was not uniform, 
Dotted with regimentals here and there ; 
An army all of captains, used to pray 
And stiff in fight, but serious drill's 

despair, 
Skilled to debate their orders, not 

obey ; 
Deacons were there, selectmen, men of 

note 
In half-tamed hamlets ambushed round 

with woods, 
Ready to settle Freewill by a vote, 
But largely liberal to its private moods ; 
Prompt to assert by manners, voice, or 

pen, 
Or ruder arms, their rights as English- 
men, 
Nor much fastidious as to how and 

when : 
Yet seasoned stuff and fittest to create 
A thought-staid army or a lasting 

state : 
Haughty they said he was, at first ; 

severe ; 
But owned, as all men own, the steady 

hand 
Upon the bridle, patient to command, 
Prized, as all prize, the justice pure 

from fear, 
And learned to honor first, then love 

him, then revere. 



412 



THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. 



Such power there is in clear-eyed self- 
restraint 
And purpose clean as light from every 

selfish taint. 

3. 
Musing beneath the legendary tree, 
The years between furl off : I seem to 

see 
The sun-flecks, shaken the stirred foliage 

through, 
Dapple with gold his sober buff and 

blue 
And weave prophetic aureoles round the 

head 
That shines our beacon now nor darkens 

with the dead. 
O, man of silent mood, 
A stranger among strangers then, 
How art thou since renowned the Great, 

the Good, 
Familiar as the day in all the homes of 

men ! 
The winged years, that winnow praise 

and blame, 
Blow many names out : they but fan to 

flame 
The self-renewing splendors of thy fame. 

IV. 



How many subtlest influences unite, 
"With spiritual touch of joy or pain, 
Invisible as air and soft as light, 
To body forth that image of the brain 
We call our Country, visionary shape, 
Loved more than woman, fuller of fire 

than wine, 
Whose charm can none define, 
Nor any, though he flee it, can escape ! 
All party-colored threads the weaver 

Time 
Sets in his web, now trivial, now sub- 
lime, 
All memories, all forebodings, hopes and 

fears, 
Mountain and river, forest, prairie, sea, 
A hill, a rock, a homestead, field, or tree, 
The casual gleanings of unreckoned 

years, 
Take goddess-shape at last and there is 

She, 
Old at our birth, new as the springing 

hours, 
Shrine of our weakness, fortress of our 

powers, 



Consoler, kindler, peerless mid her peers, 
A force that 'neath our conscious being 

stirs, 
A life to give ours permanence, when we 
Are borne to mingle our poor earth with 

hers, 
And all this glowing world goes with us 

on our biers. 

2. 

Nations are long results, by ruder ways 

Gathering the might that warrants 
length of days ; 

They may be pieced of half-reluctant 
shares 

Welded by hammer-strokes of broad- 
brained kings, 

Or from a doughty people grow, the 
heirs 

Of wise traditions widening cautious 
rings ; 

At best they are computable things, 

A strength behind us making us feel 
bold 

In right, or, as may chance, in wrong ; 

Whose force by figures may be summed 
and told, 

So many soldiers, ships, and dollars 
strong, 

And we but drops that bear compulsory 
part 

In the dumb throb of a mechanic heart ; 

But Country is a shape of each man's 
mind 

Sacred from definition, unconfined 

By the cramped walls where daily drudg- 
eries grind ; 

An inward vision, yet an outward birth 

Of sweet familiar heaven and earth ; 

A brooding Presence that stirs motions 
blind 

Of wings within our embryo beings shell 

That wait but her completer spell 

To make us eagle-natured, fit to dare 

Life's nobler spaces and untarnished air. 



You, who hold dear this self-conceived 

ideal, 
Whose faith and works alone can make 

it real, 
Bring all your fairest gifts to deck her 

shrine 
Who lifts our lives away from Thine and 

Mine 
And feeds the lamp of manhood more 

divine 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 



413 



With fragrant oils of quenchless con- 
stancy. 
"When all have done their utmost, surely 

he 
Hath given the best who gives a charac- 
ter 
Erect and constant, which nor any shock 
Of loosened elements, nor the forceful 

sea 
Of flowing or of ebbing fates, can stir 
From its deep bases in the living rock 
Of ancient manhood's sweet security : 
And this he gave, serenely far from pride 
As baseness, boon with prosperous 

stars allied, 
Part of what nobler seed shall in our 
loins abide. 



No bond of men as common pride so 
strong, 

In names time-filtered for the lips of 
song, 

Still operant, with the primal Forces 
bound 

Whose currents, on their spiritual round, 

Transfuse our mortal will nor are gain- 
said : 

These are their arsenals, these the ex- 
haustless mines 

That give a constant heart in great de- 
signs ; 

These are the stuff whereof such dreams 
are made 

As make heroic men : thus surely he 

Still holds in place the massy blocks he 
laid J 

'Neath our new frame, enforcing soberly 

The self-control that makes and keeps a 
people free. 

V. 
1. 

0, for a drop of that Cornelian ink 
Which gave Agricola dateless length 

of days, 
To celebrate him fitly, neither swerve 
To phrase unkempt, nor pass discretion's 

brink, 
With him so statue-like in sad reserve, 
So diffident to claim, so forward to de- 
serve ! 
Nor need I shun due influence of his 

fame 
Who, mortal among mortals, seemed as 
now 



The equestrian shape withunimpassioned 

brow, 
That paces silent on through vistas of 
- acclaim. 

2. 

What figure more immovably august 
Than that grave strength so patient and 

so pure, 
Calm in good fortune, when it wavered, 

sure, 
That mind serene, impenetrably just, 
Modelled on classic lines so simple they 

endure ? 
That soul so softly radiant and so white 
The track it left seems less of fire than 

light, 
Cold but to such as love distemperature ? 
And if pure light, as some deem, Ibe the 

force 
That drives rejoicing planets on their 

course, 
Why for his power benign seek an im- 

purer source ? 
His was the true enthusiasm that burns 

long, 
Domestically bright, 
Fed from itself and shy of human sight, 
The hidden force that makes a lifetime 

strong, 
And not the short-lived fuel of a song. 
Passionless, say you ? What is passion 

for 
But to sublime our natures and control 
To front heroic toils with late return, 
Or none, or such as shames the con- 
queror ? 
That fire was fed with substance of the 

soul 
And not with holiday stubble, that could 

burn, 
Unpraised of men who after bonfires run, 
Through seven slow years of unadvancing 

war, 
Equal when fields were lost or fields were 

won, 
With breath of popular applause or 

blame, 
Nor fanned nor damped, unquenchably 

the same, 
Too inward to be reached by flaws of idle 

fame. 



Soldier and statesman, rarest unison ; 
High -poised example of great duties done 
Simply as breathing, a world's honors 
worn 



414 



THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. 



As life's indifferent gifts to all men born ; 
Dumb for himself, unless it were to God, 
But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent, 
Tramping the snow to coral where they 

trod, 
Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content ; 
Modest, yet firm as Nature's self ; un- 

blamed 
Save by the men his nobler temper 

shamed ; 
Never seduced through show of present 

good 
By other than unsetting lights to steer 
New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his 

steadfast mood 
More steadfast, far from rashness as from 

fear ; 
Rigid, but with himself first, grasping 

still 
In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm 

of will ; 
Not honored then or now because he 

wooed 
The popular voice, but that he still with- 
stood ; 
Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is 

but one 
"Who was all this and ours, and all men's, 

— Washington. 



Minds strong by fits, irregularly great, 
That flash and darken like revolving 

lights, 
Catch more the vulgar eye unschooled 

to wait 
On the long curve of patient days and 

nights 
Rounding a whole life to the circle fair 
Of orbed fulfilment ; and this balanced 

soul, 
So simple in its grandeur, coldly bare 
Of draperies theatric, standing there 
In perfect symmetry of self-control, 
Seems not so great at first, but greater 

grows 
Still as we look, and by experience learn 
How grand this quiet is, how nobly 

stern 
The discipline that wrought through 

lifelong throes 
That energetic passion of repose. 



A nature too decorous and severe, 

Too self-respectful in its griefs and joys, 



For ardent girls and boys 

Who find no genius in a mind so clear 

That its grave depths seem obvious and 

near, 
Nor a soul great that made so little 

noise. 
They feel no force in that calm-cadenced 

phrase, 
The habitual full-dress of his well-bred 

mind, 
That seems to pace the minuet's courtly 

maze 
And tell of ampler leisures, roomier 

length of days. 
His firm-based brain, to self so little 

kind 
That no tumultuary blood could blind, 
Formed to control men, not amaze, 
Looms not like those that borrow height 

of haze : 
It was a world of statelier movement 

then 
Than this we fret in. he a denizen 
Of that ideal Rome that made a man for 

men. 

VI. 
1. 

The longer on this earth we live 

And weigh the various qualities of men, 

Seeing how most are fugitive, 

Or fitful gifts, at best, of now and then, 

Wind-wavered corpse-lights, daughters 

of the fen, 
The more we feel the high stern-featured 

beauty 
Of plain devotedness to duty, 
Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal 

praise, 
But finding amplest recompense 
For life's ungarlanded expense 
In work done squarely and unwasted 

days. 
For this we honor him, that he could 

know 
How sweet the service and how free 
Of her, God's eldest daughter here be- 
low, 
And choose in meanest raiment which 

was she. 

2. 

Placid completeness, life without a fall 
From faith or highest aims, truth's 

breachless wall, 
Surely if any fame can bear the touch, 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 



415 



His will say " Here ! " at the last trum- 
pet's call, 

The unexpressive man whose life ex- 
pressed so much. 

YII. 



Never to see a nation born 
Hath been given to mortal man, 
Unless to those who, on that summer 

morn, 
Gazed silent when the great Virginian 
Unsheathed the sword whose fatal flash 
Shot union through the incoherent clash 
Of our loose atoms, crystallizing them 
Around a single will's un pliant stem, 
And making purpose of emotion rash. 
Out of that scabbard sprang, as from its 

womb, 
Nebulous at first but hardening to a 

star, 
Through mutual share of sunburst and 

of gloom, 
The common faith that made us what 

we are. 

2. 
That lifted blade transformed our jan- 
gling clans, 
Till then provincial, to Americans, 
And made a unity of wildering plans ; 
Here was the doom fixed : here is marked 

the date 
When this New World awoke to man's 

estate, 
Burnt its last ship and ceased to look 

behind : 
Nor thoughtless was the choice ; no love 

or hate 
Could from its poise move that deliber- 
ate mind, 
Weighing between too early and too late 
Those pitfalls of the man refused by 

Fate : 
His was the impartial vision of the 

great 
Who see not as they wish, but as they 

find. 
He saw the dangers of defeat, nor less 
The incomputable perils of success ; 
The sacred past thrown by, an empty 

rind ; 
The future, cloud-land, snare of prophets 

blind ; 
The waste of war, the ignominy of peace ; 
On either hand a sullen rear of woes, 



Whose garnered lightnings none could 

guess, 
Piling its thunder-heads and muttering 

" Cease ! " 
Yet drew not back his hand, but gravely 

chose 
The seeming-desperate task whence our 

new nation rose. 

3. 

A noble choice and of immortal seed ! 
Nor deem that acts heroic wait on 

chance 
Or easy were as in a boy's romance ; 
The man's whole life preludes the single 

deed 
That shall decide if his inheritance 
Be with the sifted few of matchless 

breed, 
Our race's sap and sustenance, 
Or with the unmotived herd that only 

sleep and feed. 
Choice seems a thing indifferent ; thus 

or so, 
What matters it ? The Fates with mock- 
ing face 
Look on inexorable, nor seem to know 
Where the lot lurks that gives life's 

foremost place. 
Yet Duty's leaden casket holds it still, 
And but two ways are offered to our 

will, 
Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe 

disgrace, 
The problem still for us and all of hu- 
man race. 
He chose, as men choose, where most 

danger showed, 
Nor ever faltered 'neath the load 
Of petty cares, that gall great hearts the 

most, 
But kept right on the strenuous up-hill 

road, 
Strong to the end, above complaint or 

boast : 
The popular tempest on his rock-mailed 

coast 
Wasted its wind-borne spray, 
The noisy marvel of a day ; 
His soul sate still in its unstormed abode. 



VIII. 

Virginia gave us this imperial man 

Cast in the massive mould 

Of those high-statured ages old 



416 



THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. 



Which into grander forms our mortal 

metal ran ; 
She gave us this unblemished gentle- 
man : 
"What shall we give her back but love 

and praise 
As in the dear old unestranged days 
Before the inevitable wrong began ? 
Mother of States and undiminished men, 
Thou gavest us a country, giving him, 
And we owe alway what we owed thee 

then : 
The boon thou wouldst have snatched 

from us agen 
Shines as before with no abatement dim. 
A great man's memory is the only 

thing 
With influence to outlast the present 

whim 
And bind us as when here he knit our 

golden ring. 
All of him that was subject to the 

hours 
Lies in thy soil and makes it part of 

ours : 
Across more recent graves, 
Where unresentful Nature waves 
Her pennons o'er the shot-ploughed sod, 
Proclaiming the sweet Truce of God, 
We from this consecrated plain stretch 

out 
Our hands as free from afterthought or 

doubt 
As here the united North 
Poured her embrowned manhood forth 
In welcome of our savior and thy son. 
Through battle we have better learned 

thy worth, 
The long-breathed valor and undaunted 

will, 
Which, like his own, the day's disaster 

done, 
Could, safe in manhood, suffer and be 

still. 
Both thine and ours the victory hardly 

won ; 
If ever with distempered voice or pen 
We have misdeemed thee, here we take 

it back, 
And for the dead of both don common 

black. 
Be to us evermore as thou wast then, 
As we forget thou hast not always 

been, 
Mother of States and unpolluted men, 
Virginia, fitly named from England's 

manly queen ! 



AN ODE 

FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876. 

I. 

1. 

Entranced I saw a vision in the cloud 
That loitered dreaming in yon sunset sky, 
Full of fair shapes, half creatures of the 

eye, 
Half chance-evoked by the wind's fantasy 
In golden mist, an ever-shifting crowd : 
There, mid unreal forms that came and 

went 
In robes air-spun, of evanescent dye, 
A woman's semblance shone pre-emi- 
nent ; 
Not armed like Pallas, not like Hera 

proud, 
But, as on household diligence intent, 
Beside her visionary wheel she bent 
Like Arete or Bertha, nor than they 
Less queenly in her port : about her 

knee 
Glad children clustered confident in play : 
Placid her pose, the calm of energy ; 
And over her broad brow in many a 

round 
(That loosened would have gilt her gar- 
ment's hem), 
Succinct, as toil prescribes, the hair was 

wound 
In lustrous coils, a natural diadem. 
The cloud changed shape, obsequious to 

the whim 
Of some transmuting influence felt in 

me, 
And, looking now, a wolf I seemed to see 
Limned in that vapor, gaunt and hun- 
ger-bold, 
Threatening her charge : resolve in every 

limb, 
Erect she flamed in mail of sun-wove 

gold, 
Penthesilea's self for battle dight ; 
One arm uplifted braced a flickering 

spear, 
And one her adamantine shield made 

light ; 
Her face, helm-shadowed, grew a thing 

to fear, 
And her fierce eyes, by danger challenged, 

took 
Her trident-sceptred mother's dauntless 

look. 
" I know thee now, goddess-born ! " 

I cried, 



AN ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876. 



417 



And turned with loftier brow and firmer 
stride ; 

For in that spectral cloud- work I had 
seen 

Her image, bodied forth by love and 
pride, 

The fearless, the benign, the mother- 
eyed, 

The fairer world's toil-consecrated queen. 

2. 

What shape by exile dreamed elates the 

mind 
Like hers whose hand, a fortress of the 

poor, 
No blood in lawful vengeance spilt be- 

stains ? 
Who never turned a suppliant from her 

door ? 
Whose conquests are the gains of all 

mankind ? 
To-day her thanks shall fly on every 

wind, 
Unstinted, unrebuked, from shore to 

shore, 
One love, one hope, and not a doubt be- 
hind ! 
Cannon to cannon shall repeat her praise, 
Banner to banner flap it forth in flame ; 
Her children shall rise up to bless her 

name, 
And wish her harmless length of days, 
The mighty mother of a mighty brood, 
Blessed in all tongues and dear to every 

blood, 
The beautiful, the strong, and, best of 

all, the good ! 



Seven years long was the bow 
Of battle bent, and the heightening 
Storm -heaps convulsed with the throe 
Of their uncontainable lightening ; 
Seven years long heard the sea 
Crash of navies and wave-borne thunder ; 
Then drifted the cloud-rack a-lee, 
And new stars were seen, a world's 

wonder ; 
Each by her sisters made bright, 
All binding all to their stations, 
Cluster of manifold light 
Startling the old constellations : 
Men looked up and grew pale : 
Was it a comet or star, 
Omen of blessing or bale, 
Hung o'er the ocean afar ? 



Stormy the day of her birth : 
Was she not born of the strong, 
She, the last ripeness of earth, 
Beautiful, prophesied long ? 
Stormy the days of her prime : 
Hers are the pulses that beat 
Higher for perils sublime, 
Making them fawn at her feet. 
Was she not born of the strong ? 
Was she not born of the wise ? 
Daring and counsel belong 
Of right to her confident eyes : 
Human and motherly the}', 
Careless of station or race : 
Hearken ! her children to-day 
Shout for the joy of her face. 



II. 

1. 

No praises of the past are hers, 

No fanes by hallowing time caressed, 

No broken arch that ministers 

To some sad instinct in the breast : 

She has not gathered from the years 

Grandeur of tragedies and tears, 

Nor from long leisure the unrest 

That finds repose in forms of classic 

grace : 
These may delight the coming race 
Who haply shall not count it to our 

crime 
That we who fain would sing are here 

before' our time. 
She also hath her monuments ; 
Not such as stand decrepitly resigned 
To ruin-mark the path of dead events 
That left no seed of better days be- 
hind, 
The tourist's pensioners that show their 

scars 
And maunder of forgotten wars ; 
She builds not on the ground, but in the 

mind, 
Her open-hearted palaces 
For larger- thought ed men with heaven 

and earth at ease : 
Her march the plump mow marks, the 

sleepless wheel, 
The golden sheaf, the self-swayed com- 
monweal ; 
The happy homesteads hid in orchard 

trees 
Whose sacrificial smokes through peace- 
ful air 



418 



THEEE MEMORIAL POEMS. 



Rise lost in heaven, the household's 

silent prayer ; 
What architect hath bettered these ? 
With softened eye the westward traveller 

sees 
A thousand miles of neighbors side by 

side, 
Holding by toil-won titles fresh from 

God 
The lands no serf or seigneur ever trod, 
With manhood latent in the very sod, 
Where the long billow of the wheat- 
field's tide 
Flows to the sky across the prairie wide, 
A sweeter vision than the castled Rhine, 
Kindly with thoughts of Ruth and Bible- 
days benign. 

2. 
ancient commonwealths, that we 

revere 
Haply because we could not know you 

near, 
Your deeds like statues down the aisles 

of Time 
Shine peerless in memorial calm sublime, 
And Athens is a trumpet still, and 

Rome ; 
Yet which of your achievements is not 

foam 
Weighed with this one of hers (below 

you far 
In fame, and born beneath a milder star), 
That to Earth's orphans, far as curves 

the dome, 
Of death-deaf sky, the bounteous West 

means home, 
With dear precedency of natural ties 
That stretch from roof to roof and make 

men gently wise ? 
And if the nobler passions wane, 
Distorted to base use, if the near goal 
Of insubstantial gain 
Tempt from the proper race-course of 

the soul 
That crowns their patient breath 
Whose feet, song-pinioned, are too fleet 

for Death, 
Yet may she claim one privilege urbane 
And haply first upon the civic roll, 
That none can breathe her air nor grow 

humane. 

3. 
0, better far the briefest hour 
Of Athens self-consumed, whose plastic 

power 
Hid Beauty safe from Death in words 

or stone ; 



Of Rome, fair quarry where those eagles 
crowd 

Whose fulgurous vans about the world 
had blown 

Triumphant storm and seeds of polity ; 

Of Venice, fading o'er her shipless sea, 

Last iridescence of a sunset cloud ; 

Than this inert prosperity, 

This bovine comfort in the sense alone ! 

Yet art came slowly even to such as 
those, 

Whom no past genius cheated of their 
own 

With prudence of o'ermastering prece- 
dent ; 

Petal by petal spreads the perfect rose, 

Secure of the divine event ; 

And only children rend the bud half- 
blown 

To forestall Nature in her calm intent : 

Time hath a quiver full of purposes 

Which miss not of their aim, to us un- 
known, 

And brings about the impossible with 
ease : 

Haply for us the ideal dawn shall break 

From where in legend-tinted line 

The peaks of Hellas drink the morning's 
wine, 

To tremble on our lids with mystic 
sign 

Till the drowsed ichor in our veins 
awake 

And set our pulse in tune with moods 
divine : 

Long the day lingered in its sea-fringed 
nest, 

Then touched the Tuscan hills with 
golden lance 

And paused ; then on to Spain and 
France 

The splendor flew, and Albion's misty 
crest : 

Shall Ocean bar him from his destined 
West? 

Or are we, then, arrived too late, 

Doomed with the rest to grope discon- 
solate, 

Foreclosed of Beauty by our modern 
date? 

III. 
1. 

Poets, as their heads grow gray, 
Look from too far behind the eyes, 
Too long-experienced to be wise 



AN ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876. 



419 



In guileless youth's diviner way ; 
Life sings not now, but prophesies ; 
Tim'j's shadows they no more behold, 
But, under them, the riddle old 
Tnat mocks, bewilders, and defies : 
in childhood's face the seed of shame, 
In the green tree an ambushed flame, 
In Phosphor a vaunt-guard of Night, 
They, though against their will, di- 
vine, 
And dread the care-dispelling wine 
Stored from the Muse's vintage bright, 
By age imbued with second-sight. 
From Faith's own eyelids there peeps 

out, 
Even as they look, the leer of doubt ; 
The festal wreath their fancy loads 
With care that whispers and forebodes : 
Nor this our triumph-day can blunt 
Megsera's goads. 



Murmur of many voices in the air 
Denounces us degenerate, 
Unfaithful guardians of a noble fate, 
And prompts indifference or despair : 
Is this the country that we dreamed in 

youth, 
Where wisdom and not numbers should 

have weight, 
Seed-field of simpler manners, braver 

truth, 
Where shams should cease to dominate 
In household, church, and state ? 
Is this Atlantis ? This the un poisoned 

soil, 
Sea- whelmed for ages and recovered late, 
Where parasitic greed no more should 

coil 
Round Freedom's stem to bend awry 

and blight 
What grew so fair, sole plant of love and 

light ? 
Who sit where once in crowned seclu- 
sion sate 
The long-proved athletes of debate 
Trained from their youth, as none thinks 

needful now ? 
Is this debating-club where boys dis- 
pute, 
And wrangle o'er their stolen fruit, 
The Senate, erewhile cloister of the 

few, 
Where Clay once flashed and Webster's 

cloudy brow 
Brooded those bolts of thought that all 

the horizon knew ? 



0, as this pensive moonlight blurs my 

pines, 
Here as I sit and meditate these lines, 
To gray-green dreams of what they are 

by day, 
So would some light, not reason's sharp- 
edged ray, 
Trance me in moonshine as before the 

flight 
Of years had won me this unwelcome 

right 
To see things as they are, or shall be 

soon, 
In the frank prose of undissembling 

noon ! 

4. 

Back to my breast, ungrateful sigh ! 

Whoever fails, whoever errs, 

The penalty be ours, not hers ! 

The present still seems vulgar, seen too 

nigh ; 
The golden age is still the age that's 

past : 
I ask no drowsy opiate 
To dull my vision of that only state 
Founded on faith in man, and therefore 

sure to last. 
For, 0, my country, touched by thee, 
The gray hairs gather back their gold ; 
Thy thought sets all my pulses free ; 
The heart refuses to be old ; 
The love is all that I can see. 
Not to thy natal-day belong 
Time's prudent doubt or age's wrong, 
But gifts of gratitude and song : 
Unsummoned crowd the thankful words, 
As sap in spring-time floods the tree, 
Foreboding the return of birds, 
For all that thou hast been to me ! 



IY. 

1. 

Flawless his heart and tempered to 

the core 
Who, beckoned by the forward-leaning 

wave, 
First left behind him the firm-footed 

shore, 
And, urged by every nerve of sail and oar, 
Steered for the Unknown which gods to 

mortals gave, 
Of thought and action the mysterious 

door, 



420 



THREE MEMORIAL POEMS.. 



Bugbear of fools, a summons to the 

brave : 
Strength found he in the unsympathiz- 

ing sun, 
4nd strange stars from beneath the 

horizon won, 
And the dumb ocean pitilessly grave : 
High-hearted surely he ; 
But bolder they who first off- cast 
Their moorings from the habitable Past 
And ventured chartless on the sea 
Of storm-engendering Liberty : 
For all earth's width of waters is a 

span, 
And their convulsed existence mere re- 
pose, 
Matched with the unstable heart of man, 
Shoreless in wants, mist-girt in all it 

knows, 
Open to every wind of sect or clan, 
And sudden-passionate in ebbs and flows. 

2. 

They steered by stars the elder shipmen 
knew, 

And laid their courses where the cur- 
rents draw 

Of ancient wisdom channelled deep in 
law, 

The undaunted few 

Who changed the Old World for the 
New, 

And more devoutly prized 

Than all perfection theorized 

The more imperfect that had roots and 
grew. 

They founded deep and well, 

Those danger-chosen chiefs of men 

Who still believed in Heaven and Hell, 

Nor hoped to find a spell, 

In some fine flourish of a pen, 

To make a better man 

Than long-considering Nature will or 
can, 



Secure against his own mistakes, 
Content with what life gives or takes, 
And acting still on some fore-ordered 

plan, 
A cog of iron in an iron wheel, 
Too nicely poised to think or feel, 
Dumb motor in a clock-like commonweal. 
They wasted not their brain in schemes 
Of what man might be in some bubble- 
sphere, 
As if he must be other than he seems 
Because he was not what he should be 

here, 
Postponing Time's slow proof to petu- 
lant dreams : 
Yet herein they were great 
Beyond the incredulous lawgivers of j^ore, 
And wiser than the wisdom of the shelf, 
That they conceived a deeper-rooted 

state, 
Of hardier growth, alive from rind to 

core, 
By making man sole sponsor of himself. 



God of our fathers, Thou who wast, 
Art, and shalt be when those eye-wise 

who flout 
Thy secret presence shall be lost 
In the great light that dazzles them to 

doubt, 
We, sprung from loins of stalwart men 
Whose strength was in their trust 
That Thou wouldst make thy dwelling 

in their dust 
And walk with them a fellow-citizen 
Who build a city of the just, 
We, who believe Life's bases rest 
Beyond the probe of chemic test, 
Still, like our fathers, feel Thee near, 
Sure that, while lasts the immutable 

decree, 
The land to Human Nature dear 
Shall not be unbeloved of Thee. 



INDEX. 



Above and Below, 79. 

Admetus, The Shepherd of King, 44. 

After the Burial, 353. 

Aladdin, 344. 

Al Fresco, 339. 

Allegra, 10. 

All-Saints, 363. 

Ambrose, 78. 

Anti-Apis, 94. 

Apologue, An Oriental, 322-326. 

Appledore, Pictures from, 347 - 351. 

Auf Wiedersehen, 352. 

Autograph, For au, 339. 

Bartlett, To Mr. John, 366. 

Beaver Brook, 100. 

Beggar, The, 5. 

Bibliolatres, 99. 

Biglow Papers, The, 151 - 310. 

First Series, 159. 

Second Series, 205. 
Birch-Tree, The, 80. 

Blondel, Two Scenes from the Life of, 380. 
Brittany, A Legend of, 27 - 38. 
Burial, After the, 353. 

Captive, The, 79. 

Car, An Incident in a Railroad, 44. 

Cathedral, The, 393-406. 

Changeling, The, 90. 

Channing, Elegy on the Death of Dr. , 104. 

Child, On the Death of a Friend's, 87. 

Chippewa Legend, A, 54. 

Columbus, 56 - 60. 

Contrast, A, 76. 

Courtin',The, 229. 

Crisis, The Present, 67. 

Critics, A Fable for, 113-150. 

Curtain, A Glance behind the, 49 - 54. 

Dandelion, To the, 83. 

Dante, On a Portrait of, by Giotto, 87. 

Dara, G35. 

Dead House, The, 353. 

Earlier Poems, 1-27. 
Ember Picture, An, 373. 
Eurydice, 89. 
Eve, New- Year's, 339. 

Falcon, The, 48. 

Familiar Epistle to a Friend, A, 371. 

Fancv's Casuistry, 365. 

Fatherland, The. 13. 

Flower, With a Pressed, 5. 



Foot-Path, The, 376. 
Forlorn, The. 14. 
Fountain of Youth, The, 359 
Fountain, The, 10. 
France, Ode to, 92. 
Freedom, 98. 
Freedom, Stanzas on, 56. 
Future, To the, 65. 

Garrison, To W. L., 103. 

Ghost-Seer, The, 84. 

Godminster Chimes, 341. 

Gold Egg : A Dream- Fantasy, 369. 

Hamburg, An Incident of the Fire at, 60. 

Happiness, Ode to, 367. 

Harvard Commemoration, Ode recited at the, 

384-390. 
Hebe, 66. 
Heritage, The, 15. 
Hood, To the Memory of, 106. 
Hunger and Cold, 61. 

Invita Minerva, 359. 
Invitation, An, 344. 
Irene, 3. 

Knott, The Unhappy Lot of Mr., 311 -32L 
Kossuth, 101. 

Lamartine, To, 101. 

Landlord, The, 62. 

Launfal, The Vision of Sir, 107-112. 

Leaves, The Singing, 337. 

Legend, The Growth of the, 74. 

L'Envoi, 25, 390. 

Lines suggested by the Graves of two English 

Soldiers on Concord Battle-Ground, 97. 
Longing, 92. 
Love, 7. 
Love, My, 5. 
Lyre, The Finding of the, 338. 

Mahmood the Image-Breaker, 358- 

Masaccio, 340. 

Memoriae Positum, 381. 

Memorial Verses, 101 -106. 

Midnight, 15. 

Mind, The Darkened, 362. 

Miner, The, 369. 

Miscellaneous Poems, 27-100. 

Mood, A, 354. 

Moon, The, 9. 

Music, Remembered, 9. 



422 



INDEX. 



New- Year's Eve, 1850, 339. 

Nightingale in the Study, The, 375. 

Nomades, The, 345. 

Norton, To Charles Eliot, 329. 

Oak, The, 77. 

Ode, 11. 

Ode for the Fourth of July, 1876, 416. 

Ode on the Hundredth Anniversary of the 

Fight at Concord Bridge, 407. 
Ode on the Introduction of Cochituate Water 

into Boston, 96. 
On Board the 76, 383. 

Palfrey, To John G., 102. 
Palinode, 352. 
Parable, A, 18, 96. 
Past, To the, 64. 
Perdita, To, Singing, 8. 
Pine-Tree, To a, 63. O 
Pioneer, The, 91. P 

Poems of the War, 376 - 391. 
Prayer, A, 15. ' 

Prometheus, 38 - 44. 

Requiem, A, 18. 

Reverie, An Indian-Summer, 69 - 74. 

Rhoecus, 46. 

Rosaline, 17. 

Rose, The, 16. 

Search, The, 66. 
Sea- Weed, 338. 
Self- Study, 346. 
Serenade, 4. 

She Came and Went, 90. 
Snroud, The Washers of the, 3"S. 
Si Descendero in Infernum, Ades, 63. 
Sirens, The, 2. 

Slaves, On the Capture of Fugitive, near Wash- 
ington, 82. 
Snow-Fail, The First, 336. 
Song, 9, 17, 19. 



Sonnets, 19 - 25. 

To A. C. L., 19. 

To the Spirit of Keats, 20. 

To M. W. on her Birthday, 21. 

Sub Pondere Crescit, 22. 

On reading Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defene* | 
of Capital Punishment, 22, 23. 
. To M. O. S., 23. 

In Absence, 24. 

Wendell Phillips, 24. 

The Street, 24. 

To J. R. Giddings, 25. 
Sower, The, 61. 

Standish, An Interview with Miles, 81, 
Studies for Two Heads, 86. 
Storm, Summer, 6. 
Three Memorial Poems, 405-420. 
Threnodia, 1. 

To , 98. 

To H. W. L., on his Birthday, 374. 

Token, The, 44. 

Torrey, On the Death of C. T., 104. 

Trial, 48. 

Twilight, In the, 375. 

Unction, Extreme, 76. 

Under the Old Elm at Cambridge, 410. 

Under the Willows, 329-335. 

Villa Franca, 368. 

Vinland, The Voyage to, 354-358. 

Ways, The Parting of the, 342. 

What Rabbi Jehosha said, 363. . 

Willows, Under the, and other Poems, 327 

-377. 
Wind-Harp, The, 351. 
Winter-Evening Hvmii to my Fire, A, 363. 
Without and Within, 341. 

Xussouf, 362. 



THE END. 



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